Innocence

Girls' schools make good settings for mysterious goings-on (see Suspiria, Picnic at Hanging Rock) and the goings-on here are certainly mysterious. There's a lot left unexplained... most of it is blatantly metaphorical, but it's not always obvious what the metaphor represents. A thought-provoking work, beautifully shot with a lovely score and a talented batch of young actresses.

So boring that I did not even see the second hour. What an excuse to show little girls tits.

Beautifully shot. Pointless & boring. The story is absent. Dozens of scene progressions lead up to basically nothing. Lots of beautiful iconic imagery, such as arriving in a coffin, going through a dungeon & eventually leaving on a train. An attempt to tell a story using only imagery? By the end I was just hoping something, anything would happen, to make my investment of time meaningful, but it utterly fails to deliver. Why exactly was this film made? What possible purpose could it serve?

Great cinematography and a mysterious, brooding atmosphere that seems to work towards something interesting but never quite delivers. Once you realize "oh wait is all s'posed ta be symbolic innit?" the movie loses a lot of steam.

What a mood, Enchanting. Like a goosebumps story without the lame campy stuff, or like what a boarding school would be like on "Myst Isle". Think "Picnic at hanging rock", done right. Beautiful film, despite an absolutely atrocious DVD transfer. (Apparently the Artificial Eye release is the way to go, the "Home Vision" that Netflix is shelling out is garbage.)

Strange, beautiful, and mesmerising. Enid Blyton setting and characters mixed with a constant ethereal Lynchian mystery. The cinematography was gorgeous, and the constant unsettling tone was very eerie. ps people who call it boring are big jerks

It keeps up this atmosphere that's not quite menacing, but definitely unsettling and mysterious. The cinematography is absolutely gorgeous and every scene in the forest had me transfixed. Mixed with the good score and good acting, it's a very well constructed film that maybe doesn't tell much in the way of a story, but feels very satisfying in the end anyway.

A sweet film about growing up, from the perspective of a woman. I'll admit that as a young man it made me pretty uncomfortable in the way that tampon commercials make me uncomfortable, but I got over that immaturity and became transfixed. The Lynch influence was pretty obvious yet served the film well in a very different way. The metaphors actually meant something, and for all of the sinister moods built up throughout, it actually had something of a happy ending, which was refreshing.

Much like she later would in Evolution, Hadzihalilovic delivers absolutely stunning images and a story that almost only works as allegory. Which is a pity because the world she establishes is intriguing, but there are so many loose scenes with little explanation that once you think you've figured the point the movie's trying to make, there's still 40 minutes left before you get to the end.

I think I would love this film if I were a pedophile. Sorry, but watching randomly naked little girls is not enough to keep me interested. To be honest, I find this perverted and disgusting. On top of that, my PSI was 76, what the hell?

Allegoric coming of age snoozefest that doesn't really say anything interesting.

Well what the Dickens was all that about? Hadzihalilovic's enigmatic drama provides plenty of thinking but no answers - except to those who are willing to risk an interpretation. Thankfully, the film can be followed and enjoyed on a thematic level, even if the plot is all loose ends. Aesthetically it is nicely filmed and has its own style and tone, albeit a slow-paced one at times. A memorable journey around the fringes of surrealism, metaphor and poetry.

Ambiguous, uncanny story about the artifice and nature involved in raising girls, viewed as a series of stages from infancy to childhood to adolescence, where entering each stage is in a way a rebirth implying the death of the existence belonging to the previous one (symbolised by the lifecycle of the butterfly), as rough preparation for courtship and reproduction. Adorno: "Today Wedekind's works are like ciphers of themselves. Looking at them and understanding them are actually the same thing."

Satisfyingly atmospheric, but Hadzihalilovic runs away with it, in the process detracting from both plot and allegory. Didn't dare stray too far from its source novella, perhaps.

woman as theatre; a mysterious and elusive allegory for the prepubescent period of female socialisation. a bit too elusive, perhaps.

Meandering but I barely felt it thanks to the way the film builds everything methodically, revealing the characters and situation slowly and steadily right up to the surprising finale. There was never a moment where I wasn't curious about what was coming next. The beautiful imagery helped too, since above all the film is about mood, the unsettling confusion of childhood made palpable and concrete for both the audience and the characters in the film.

Innocence, a movie about a secluded boarding house of young girls, is about growing up. It follows these young girls in the steps of their early lives. A beautiful movie.

Picnic at Hanging Rock: New Generation.

A beguiling treat of a movie. Sinister yet we never find out quite why, so beautifully made it almost hurts, mystery dripping from every scene, utterly captivating for every single moment. The metaphor for the burgeoning of puberty is clear yet also beautifully handled (that ending!) and though clear never reveals itself fully - the enigmatic quality of the film always remains leaving you pondering throughout. One of the best of the decade.

This film absolutely gorgeous. It's a good thing that the subject matter is beautiful as well. "Innocence" tells that story of a secluded home for girls. The home is in the middle of a vast forest, isolated from the rest of the world. Girls arrive in the home, at a very young age, in a coffin. As the girls age, they earn different colored ribbons which symbolize their age. When the girls reach puberty and maturity, they are released to the world. It touches on loss of innocence and growing up.

Hadzihalilovic expertly plays with our distinctly non-innocent perception of the world in this very unsettling tale of transition. Atmospheric, beautifully shot, layered work.

An obvious, flat, boring, and sometimes annoying allegory for the transitional stage to womanhood, portrayed by a rather untalented and uninteresting young cast. On the plus side, it has some pretty cinematography, a brooding soundtrack and Marion Cotillard as a ballet teacher.

Not getting what the hubbubs about, but it's decent and imaginative enough.

"Bursting with pretentious pap about women's journey from a state of undefiled innocence to sullied slutdom." - Nick Schager

What a strange strange movie.

While Innocence is about childhood in general, it focuses on the female experience. The film shows how the girls are continually judged on how well they dance, their appearance, and how well they fall in line. The only line spoken by a man was something like "Take this rose. You are the prettiest." The girls are frequently told that they're supposed to use these things when they get to the outside. This is a quite disturbing picture of childhood, but it has an irresistible quality to it.

Good cinematography. Everything else is boring.

This One Got An Eerie Atmosphere