Innocence

Marion Cotillard stars in this powerful, Gothic coming-of-age tale from Lucile Hadžihalilović, based on a late-19th-century novella by Frank Wedekind.

Six-year-old Iris emerges from a burial box into a dreamlike world of pre-pubescent girls, all with coloured ribbons in their hair. The ribbons denote the girls’ ages – all-important in this self-contained school set deep in the forest’s heart. Here, the girls are tutored in ballet and biology, for it is essential that they be pretty, elegant breeders. Those who are disobedient are punished, and those who try to escape never leave: obedience is the only path to happiness. But what is the fate of the girls, when each evening the oldest departs, never to return?

Shot by Benoît Debie (Vortex, MIFF 2022; Climax, MIFF 2018), Innocence is a visually outstanding allegory that explores the fear and attraction of the unknown, the rules and rituals of society, and the limits of innocence and femininity, delivering the contemporary Gothic associated with Angela Carter’s fiction.

“Surreal, eerie and beautiful … If David Lynch and Ingmar Bergman had ever collaborated, it might look something like Lucile Hadžihalilović’s breathtakingly beautiful Innocence.” – Woman in Revolt