The key goes into the lock, the coffin opens and there is the naked six-year-old Iris. Alive and well, like a newborn child in the middle of a group of little girls with plaits and white dresses. Her new world is comprised of a rural school building in a walled, fairy-tale park. Disobedience is punished and anyone who tries to flee has to stay forever. Iris clings onto Bianca (12), who has to go to a secret encounter every evening at nine on the dot… Childlike innocence and the burden of growing up are not unknown film subjects, but the way in which Hadzihalilovic breaks with the traditional approach to these themes is innovative. Innocence is a magic, poetic dream with elements of theatre, psychological thriller and a trace of horror. With very stylised camerawork, the mood rocks gently between innocent and sinister. The mystery unfolds meticulously and consistently into a grand metaphorical plot. Innocence is loosely based on Frank Wedekind’s 1903 novella Mine-Haha oder Über die körperliche Erziehung der jungen Mädchen. The perspective is that of a six-year-old girl, until her world shifts naturally to that of the older Bianca. Eight years after her feature début La bouche de Jean-Pierre, Hadzihalilovic has again evoked a strange and oppressive vision. (SdH)
