Innocence

Lucile Hadžihalilović’s “Innocence” is not a film you watch—it’s a film you sink into, like a dream you can’t quite interpret, or a childhood memory that turns uncanny in retrospect.

In her audacious feature debut, Hadžihalilović—often noted as the creative partner of Gaspar Noé but unmistakably a visionary in her own right—crafts a world that hovers between fairytale and fever dream, both delicate and quietly menacing.

Loosely inspired by Frank Wedekind’s 1903 novella Mine-Haha, or On the Bodily Education of Young Girls, “Innocence” follows the lives of girls at a secluded, ethereal boarding school tucked deep within a forest that feels out of time and place.

New students arrive not in buses or by foot—but in coffins. Yes, coffins. This opening gesture tells you everything you need to know: this is not our world, but rather a meticulously imagined microcosm with its own rhythms, rules, and rituals.

Our entry point is Iris, the youngest, freshly unearthed from her wooden box and welcomed by a quiet, knowing cohort of girls adorned with color-coded ribbons to indicate their age and year. From there, we meander—patiently and almost trance-like—through the paths of three girls: Iris, the innocent observer; Alice, the restless dreamer contemplating escape; and Bianca, on the cusp of whatever lies beyond graduation.

Notably, Marion Cotillard makes a haunting impression in an early role as one of the school’s instructors, exuding both maternal calm and enigmatic detachment. What “Innocence” lacks in traditional narrative propulsion, it more than compensates for in atmosphere and haunting suggestion.

Hadžihalilović orchestrates her world like a choreographer rather than a storyteller.

Movement and gesture take precedence over dialogue. Much of the action unfolds in nature—unspoiled forests, sun-dappled ponds, shadowed groves—spaces that feel both liberating and ominously uncontrolled.

There’s a raw sensuality in the way the camera caresses water, an element that recurs as both a symbol of danger (drowning) and transformation (immersion, passage). Water flows, and so too does time, with its inevitable and sometimes terrifying transitions.

The cinematography is nothing short of entrancing. There’s a delicate precision in how the film balances the childlike wonder of its subjects with an undercurrent of unease.

Colors are digitally manipulated to push the film just beyond realism—skies shimmer with unnatural hues, shadows stretch and blur in strange ways, and “day-for-night” scenes ooze a kind of quiet dread. The visuals conjure the uncanny in the most elegant of ways.

Symbolism is everywhere, most strikingly in the ribbons and butterfly wings the girls wear. The ribbons—passed down from older girls to younger ones—map out a silent hierarchy, a lineage of girlhood that is both nurturing and claustrophobic.

And the butterfly wings? On the one hand, they evoke transformation, the beautiful emergence into womanhood. On the other, they’re fragile ornaments of captivity. The wings are meant to fly, but here, they adorn bodies that are not yet allowed to leave the enclosure.

What makes “Innocence” truly spellbinding is Hadžihalilović’s refusal to provide a clear answer to what it all means.

Is this an allegory of female puberty and sexual awakening? A feminist critique of how society isolates and conditions young girls? A metaphorical purgatory? A disturbingly quiet piece of surreal horror?

The film doesn’t argue for one interpretation over another; it merely opens a door and asks you to step inside.

In the years since, Hadžihalilović’s cinematic language has only grown more refined, with works like Evolution (2015) continuing her fascination with bodily transformation, mysterious institutions, and the blurred lines between innocence and monstrosity.

Her voice stands firmly within a lineage of European surrealist auteurs—from Buñuel to Żuławski—who use cinema not to explain reality, but to estrange us from it, inviting us to see its deeper, more subconscious architecture.

“Innocence” is a film that mirrors you more than it tells you something—its meaning is less a message and more a sensation, an experience that wraps around your psyche and lingers long after the final frame.

Viewers may see anything from empowerment to exploitation in its meticulously composed frames, and that ambiguity is precisely what gives Innocence its strange and enduring power.

But be warned: this is not a film for the impatient or the passive viewer. It’s glacial in pace, devoid of traditional climaxes, and resolutely uninterested in conventional storytelling.

“Innocence” belongs to that rare breed of cinema that feels more like a ritual than a narrative—something you endure and absorb rather than simply consume.

It leaves you adrift in thought, unsettled but also strangely elated—like you’ve wandered through someone else’s dream and come back changed. You may not fully understand it, but you’ll never forget the feeling of it.

Not for everyone, but essential for those who find beauty in mystery and meaning in ambiguity. Watch it not to “get it,” but to feel it.