Innocence – Film Review

Lucile Hadžihalilović – Innocence (2004)

It starts in the water. It is time for the new-comers.

The film sets in a young girls boarding school in a forest surrounded by high walls. It is just like a prison. There is a lake where the girls swim. We do not exactly know the time period and the place.

The period lasts about seven years from childhood to adolescence is represented by the ribbons which consist of the seven colours of rainbow respectively from infrared to purple and beyond. Red is for the youngest, violet is for the eldest. Iris is a 6 year-old new-comer with the red ribbon. Selma is the naughty child with the orange ribbon who symbolizes the rivalry between siblings. Alice is the rebel girl with the blue ribbon and Bianca is a 12-year-old girl with the violet ribbon in her way to puberty.

The film literally shows the latent phase in Sigmund Freud’s theory of psychosexual development. This period, in which previous sexual curiosities were forgotten, is the most innocent period among all the stages. The death of sexual curiosity is represented in the film by forgetting the outside world and waking up in a coffin to an innocent world while playing 60th opus from Sergei Prokofiev’s Lieutenant Kije in the background. Their white clothes are the representation of purity. Children are perceived as innocent in society and innocence is seen as a term which is far from sexuality, therefore child sexuality is ignored or sexual curiosity in children is not taken seriously. In children, however, a noticeable interest in sexuality begins at 3-4 years of age, it is different from adults.

Natacha has gone and the new violet ribbon, Bianca, looks after the new-comer Iris. This makes Selma angry. She feels uncared for since she is not the youngest anymore. She is jealous of Iris and wants to hurt her. This symbolizes the jealousy between siblings. In latency period, children are taken from their families, start school and meet the concept of a teacher. Games are also very important and as we can see in the film, the kids play various games. They also tend to find a role model. In the film, there are two female teachers, who are also considered as role models for the girls. Society decides a woman figure and every girl is coded to maintain the standard. The same goes for the men. Gender is something learnt. During the girl’s transition to puberty, they have the figure of a woman, a figure that guides them. This process can be challenging to complete since adolescence is a tempestuous period, in which both physical and psychological changes occur. The first step to puberty can create a shock, especially when the girl is not well informed about the process. So it does make things easier to have such an instructional figure. But is everything taught or known true? Does everyone accompanied by a role model complete these processes as expected?

The teachers teach the girls biology and ballet -like in many films, ballet education is a symbol associated with obedience- and impress upon them an idea that obedience is the only path to happiness. Women teach women that women must obey to be happy, women should look attractive all the time, wife should obey her husband for the sake of a happy marriage, men are the source of money and power. However, one thing is certain that obedience only gives happiness to the one who is obeyed. When the ballet teacher started crying all of a sudden, she had to stop crying. It is not allowed.

In the film, there are some rules and it is forbidden to escape from the boarding school. Children tell horror stories about the ones who escape. Alice does not believe those stories to be true and thinks that they are allowed to go outside when they want to. This is because she is not willingly staying there and when she loses the competition, she escapes by jumping off the wall.

Each year a blue ribbon is chosen to leave, which represents the competition in the latent stage. Normally, they should have been selected according to their ballet performance and ability but what we see is that beauty is also a great criterion, just like in the real world. Fit body, long neck, beautiful hands, good-looking teeth needed for the presentable chosen one. It is hard to be a woman.

If someone escapes, teacher only remarks that “She is not with us anymore.”, and never mentions them again, so we do not know what happens after that. We did not see what happened to Alice or Laura. However, I can assume that the ones who escape is the ones who fail at the latent phase of Freud’s psychosexual theory of development. Achieving is important in this period. Eric Erikson’s theory of psychosocial development says that children who fail to successfully complete the latency period may see themselves as inadequate individuals. In future, they can experience inferiority complex.

How important is to find a partner? Does every human being need reproduction? In one scene, the biology teacher tells the transformation of the caterpillar into a butterfly and says that the butterfly is now ready to find a partner in the outside. Violet ribbons present their ballet show on the stage wearing a butterfly costume. This means they are now ready to find a partner. And it just so happens that the audience is all male. While they are dancing, an old man gives Bianca a rose and says that she is the prettiest. After the show, Bianca finds a glove on a seat, probably that man’s glove. She wears that glove and touches her legs. It may symbolize child sexuality or even pedophilia. The next day, Bianca throws the rose into the water. We can see Bianca’s struggle to leaving her childhood and going to genital stage.

At the end, while teachers are taking the girls to puberty by train, Bianca wonders if she will ever see them again and “You will soon forget us.” says the teacher. Innocence is forgotten to not to be remembered. The girls are now in the outside world. Bianca, the prettiest, finds her partner, a young boy in the water. The film ends in the water.

After watching this film, I questioned the concept of innocence. Is it the state of not knowing about the bad things in life? If it is so, who is innocent, the ones that obey or rebel?

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