Post by johndav on Feb 3, 2006 16:52:33 GMT
I held this back from yesterday thinking my birthday had affected my judgment. Could a film about young girls at a strange boarding school really be a better feature debut than the mighty Kane?
Well, waking up this morning to have a look at the dvd interview with Hadzihlilovic, i feel more confident in what i was going to say. Of course Kane is a "greater" film, a virtuoso, innovative display on a very grand subject that announces in its every frame a major new talent. Innocence is greater because of its modesty! Of course there are plenty of modest films- but to quote Churchill, with "plenty to be modest about". This is the work of someone with a clear mastery of cinema (composition, colour, camera movement, lighting, sound, editing, in fact her overall control of mise-en-scene is exceptional etc), but with the maturity not to need to make a brash demonstration. I was delighted she said so herself in interview - "i didn't deliberately set out to create something extremely astonishing"- and that her personality fitted perfectly the image i had of her. She respects her audience, avoids crass manipulation, and has an unusual visual imagination. She has quietly absorbed the influences (Argento, Bresson, Spirit of the Beehive- again i was pleased the names she mentioned were those i'd expected) while making something very personal + intimate, mining psychological depths + effectively capturing a feeling of the childhood we've lost, its natural wonderment, mystery, sensuality, constraints and expectations.
I guess fans of Borowczyk, the Quay bros, Czech surrealism should be pleased but the film's lack of explicit narrative will not appeal to others. You may find reminders of the train journey (Storaro's work) in The Conformist, and of Madchen in Uniform, though that has a very strong anti-authoritarian message while Innocence is more enigmatically troubling.
This masterpiece should become an automatic choice for film course studies (and wider cultural studies too) as it touches on a range of important psychological + social issues- it's gently challenging-, while offering plenty for the cinephile to enthuse over.
FURTHER THOUGHTS
The water at the beginning not only evokes pre-birth but at the same time gave me a premonition of death, so covers the whole spectrum you could say. That sequence had something of the quality of a Brakhage or handpainted short about it, but already carrying greater depth of meaning. And by the end of the film there were hints in its architectural space of Antonioni, with Bergman's Cries + Whispers, The Shining, Mulholland Dr, Jacques Rivette in between. As i said, her sense of composition, use of deep space, the whole frame, is exceptional but not in a showy way. The camera is often static but when it moves it's impressive. I worry about critics who apparently got hot under the collar about perceived exploitation or sensuality involving children. Childhood IS sensual. Nudity is natural, not to be despised. Indict our society not the film.
I like its slow development + ambiguity: it's 20 minutes till we have an adult figure and we are mainly restricted to 2 classes + their teachers, without any concrete sense of what the school is for, but instead a faint menace. The similarity with Suspiria is quite strong, with the malaise and the shadowy headteacher figure, but it doesn't lay it on thick like Argento. It's also very beautiful. And, even more impressive cos she didn't attend one herself, she catches the bewildering edgy prison-like claustrophobia of boarding school, the elitism, the urge to escape, alongside a pantheistic exploration of nature + freedom..
Well, waking up this morning to have a look at the dvd interview with Hadzihlilovic, i feel more confident in what i was going to say. Of course Kane is a "greater" film, a virtuoso, innovative display on a very grand subject that announces in its every frame a major new talent. Innocence is greater because of its modesty! Of course there are plenty of modest films- but to quote Churchill, with "plenty to be modest about". This is the work of someone with a clear mastery of cinema (composition, colour, camera movement, lighting, sound, editing, in fact her overall control of mise-en-scene is exceptional etc), but with the maturity not to need to make a brash demonstration. I was delighted she said so herself in interview - "i didn't deliberately set out to create something extremely astonishing"- and that her personality fitted perfectly the image i had of her. She respects her audience, avoids crass manipulation, and has an unusual visual imagination. She has quietly absorbed the influences (Argento, Bresson, Spirit of the Beehive- again i was pleased the names she mentioned were those i'd expected) while making something very personal + intimate, mining psychological depths + effectively capturing a feeling of the childhood we've lost, its natural wonderment, mystery, sensuality, constraints and expectations.
I guess fans of Borowczyk, the Quay bros, Czech surrealism should be pleased but the film's lack of explicit narrative will not appeal to others. You may find reminders of the train journey (Storaro's work) in The Conformist, and of Madchen in Uniform, though that has a very strong anti-authoritarian message while Innocence is more enigmatically troubling.
This masterpiece should become an automatic choice for film course studies (and wider cultural studies too) as it touches on a range of important psychological + social issues- it's gently challenging-, while offering plenty for the cinephile to enthuse over.
FURTHER THOUGHTS
The water at the beginning not only evokes pre-birth but at the same time gave me a premonition of death, so covers the whole spectrum you could say. That sequence had something of the quality of a Brakhage or handpainted short about it, but already carrying greater depth of meaning. And by the end of the film there were hints in its architectural space of Antonioni, with Bergman's Cries + Whispers, The Shining, Mulholland Dr, Jacques Rivette in between. As i said, her sense of composition, use of deep space, the whole frame, is exceptional but not in a showy way. The camera is often static but when it moves it's impressive. I worry about critics who apparently got hot under the collar about perceived exploitation or sensuality involving children. Childhood IS sensual. Nudity is natural, not to be despised. Indict our society not the film.
I like its slow development + ambiguity: it's 20 minutes till we have an adult figure and we are mainly restricted to 2 classes + their teachers, without any concrete sense of what the school is for, but instead a faint menace. The similarity with Suspiria is quite strong, with the malaise and the shadowy headteacher figure, but it doesn't lay it on thick like Argento. It's also very beautiful. And, even more impressive cos she didn't attend one herself, she catches the bewildering edgy prison-like claustrophobia of boarding school, the elitism, the urge to escape, alongside a pantheistic exploration of nature + freedom..