Ida (Raquel Lenora Flottum) and her sister Anna (Alva Brinsmo Ramstad) are ordinary girls in innocent. They appear to be, at least most of the time. But in reality, both show inexplicable abilities that become more and more violent over time. However, neither one nor the other fully understands what is happening. They only know that they feel hatred, anger or rage, and that there will be consequences.. So disgusting and scary that it disgusts.
AT innocent, the most violent and disturbing scenes occur between seemingly innocent laughter. Worse, in parks full of toys, or among the echoes of inconsolable children’s cries. A chilling landscape that gives the film a certain bitter aftertaste of an inexplicable event. But director Eskil Vogt uses this curious perception of the macabre to create a new take on fear. At best, a completely original journey through disturbing spaces where there is danger, violence and, in the end, death.
In fact, the entire argument innocent It happens among ideas that transcend their little protagonists. Not because they are complicated or strange, but because each of them they’re so young they haven’t yet questioned guilt or violence. Every emotion, from fear to awe, is experienced with the same intensity.
This is what the script makes clear, showing the daily lives of its very young characters. None of them reach early adolescence. Most look at the world with wide, surprised eyes. Like any other child who has not yet left kindergarten, emotions are everything. As powerful as they are intricate, on the verge of uncontrollable.
innocent and its naive darkness
This is a homogeneous moral landscape, which the director also transfers to the physical world. In the large Norwegian residential building in which the action of the story takes place, everything is ordinary and identical to each other. Which makes Ida just another nine year old who understands that the world around her has limits. That he cries when he falls and scratches his knees, or goes into a rage because of complete disappointment.
Besides The experience of Ida and her sister Anna is unlike any other child their age.. The possibility soon emerges in a horror movie that they have unknown physical abilities. Some are scary, others downright dangerous. They all have to go through their tiny vision of what surrounds them. It’s that little window to the world that makes innocent be so confusing. Little by little, Ida will show that her ability, or at least the physical experience of her emotions, is more unsettling than one might think.
An eerie scenario in which the notions of guilt, moral responsibility, or even fear are still blurred and confusing. But for the characters, the primitive capacity for evil transcends the adult perception of a particular setting. This becomes clear as they begin to discover their unique and sometimes terrifying abilities. Especially when it is clear that horror is associated not with depravity, but with surprise.
Children who are just children in the midst of horror
Despite the tragic and often bloody events that take place in the film, the script refuses to judge what it shows. Either because it is about children, or because their every action is driven by primal emotions. Regardless of the answer, the argument has an oddly neutral tone. One that is associated with a deep dimension of inexplicable fear. Can someone very young really be evil?
It’s not the first time the horror genre has asked itself these questions. Vogt does this with an ease that is frightening in its honesty. Where does inner darkness come from? Is this behavior learned or assumed to be part of human nature? innocent you don’t want to answer these questions. But it inevitably forces the viewer to formulate them.
After all, it is only about children. Small enough to cry in fear after doing terrible things. Little ones in yellow raincoats and with naive faces that hide in the dark and personify something terrible and disturbing.
Childhood has turned into something dark, a chaotic version of adult fear of the inexplicable.. If maturity is a transition between desires and temptations, then what can innocence be? The film does not ask simple questions and dares to speculate on fear in its purest form. A state that was also part of less complex but equally confusing discourses during the year that terror turned into new and painful spaces.
Ghostly and tiny horror innocent
At first sight, innocent shows the same analysis of action that a superhero movie usually includes. The evolution of his characters’ power connects him to the origin story. In fact, it may have some parallels with violent Brightburn: Son of Darkness David Yarovsky. Both delve into their little protagonists, watching the oddity and then the sinister hidden in the second reading of the terrifying.
But innocent stands entirely on the codes of terror. As it develops, and especially when it becomes clear that the phenomenon surrounding Ida and Anna is not unique, the scenario darkens. However, not because of the violence that is clearly displayed on the screen, or the horrors that are shown with nightmarish slowness. The scariest part of the movie is that declare that every man, woman and child supports the redoubt of hidden darkness. One that could wake up at the most unexpected moment and in the most cruel way.
innocentHaving overcome all layers of fear to turn his characters into harsh, monstrous qualities, he penetrates the frightening from a distance. It is up to each viewer to decide what drives the mechanisms of the rough interior landscape, which is shown from time to time in all its horror. Are children a message of evil in the adult world? As one of the characters looks in awe at its ability to deal damage, the question is inevitable. And also the horror that lurks on the periphery. Perhaps the most sinister moment of the film, full of innuendo.
