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Innocence

France, United Kingdom, Belgium

2004

122 Min
Color
2.35:1
French
  • Currently 3.9/5 Stars.
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DIR Lucile Hadzihalilovic

EXEC Paul Trijbits

PROD Patrick Sobelman

SCR Lucile Hadzihalilovic, Frank Wedekind

DP Benoît Debie

CAST Zoé Auclair, Bérangère Haubruge, Lea Bridarolli, Marion Cotillard, Hélène de Fougerolles, Alisson Lalieux, Astrid Homme, Ana Palomo-Diaz, Olga Peytavi-Müller, Corinne Marchand, Sonia Petrovna

ED Adam Finch

PROD DES Arnaud de Moleron

MUSIC Richard Cooke

SOUND Pascal Jasmes

Toronto (Discovery), London, San Sebastián (New Directors): Best New Director, Stockholm (Competition): Bronze Horse, Best Cinematography, San Francisco (World Cinema), Karlovy Vary, Rotterdam, Mar del Plata, San Sebastián (Cutting Edge of French Cinema)

Synopsis

Confused yet curious, six-year-old Iris is taken in hand by Bianca, the leader of a group of girls who live in one of five houses that make up a kind of boarding school. The only adults are old servants and two authoritarian teachers. Obedience is paramount. Those caught trying to escape are either swallowed up by the horrors of the outside world or condemned to serve the other girls within the school walls for the rest of their lives. The girls suffer various indignities of school life, longing to get outside. However, the eldest girls disappear each night for several hours under orders not to reveal their whereabouts to the others. In the end, we learn how these girls step into adulthood in this familiar, but clearly alternate, universe. –inbaseline.com

Director

Original

Lucile Hadzihalilovic

Lucile Hadzihalilovic (1961 – ) is a French filmmaker. She became the first woman to win the Stockholm International Film Festivals annual Bronze Horse award for best film for her 2004 film Innocence.

Hadzihalilovic was born in Lyon in 1961 to Bosnian immigrant parents. She studied filmmaking at the Institut des Hautes Études Cinématographiques in Paris. She has worked as an editor of documentaries and features, and is a longtime collaborator with her husband Gaspar Noé, serving as a producer and editor of his short Carne (1991) and feature I Stand Alone (1998).

Innocence is her second film, following 1996’s La Bouche de Jean-Pierre, which was screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 1996 Cannes Film Festival. —Wikipedia 

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Nutter Jr

24Jun12

An enigmatic and allegorical film that manages to sustain a penetrating feeling of uneasiness and suspense in a visually exuberant parable of female sexuality. It is a journey so vibrant that the lack of destination becomes an asset rather than a limitation.

Scott Barley likes this

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Guillermo Padilla

22Feb12

Una joya cinematografíca un ritmo casi natural y una direccion impecable, es grato encontrarse con joyas como esta, muy recomendada

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Risya

19Nov11

An engaging and unconventional cinematic experience for patience viewers. The pace is a touch too slow and told in a very abstract way but the story is really curious and the tone remains both haunting and consistent with the elements of surrealism and dreamlike feel. This film has a fascinating lineage, very lyrical in its narrative and composition. There's no clear outcome and certainty out of this but it certainly makes you think.

Florence Rolando likes this

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L. Nolan

13Jul11

Awesome experience! Bewildering and beguiling at same time.

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CIFF 2005 REVIEW: INNOCENCE

By Twitchfilm.com on May 17, 2011
The hardest part of my CIFF 2005 experience was the series of wrapup reviews I wanted to run. The end result is shorter reviews than I’d like but rest assured you are hearing about movies that will be
read on Twitchfilm.com

CIFF 2005 REVIEW: INNOCENCE

By Twitchfilm.net on July 16, 2010
The hardest part of my CIFF 2005 experience was the series of wrapup reviews I wanted to run. The end result is shorter reviews than I’d like but rest assured you are hearing about movies that will be
read on Twitchfilm.net

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