A macabre tale that borrows as much from Katsuhiro Otomo as from M. Night Shyamalan, The Innocents succeeds in just about everything it undertakes. The film frightens as much as it moves, with the disturbing infantile gaze portrayed as its depiction of tormented parenthood. The first shock of 2022 is Norwegian.
The Innocents : the slap at the beginning of the year
Eskil Vogt was much better known as a screenwriter. The Norwegian, Joachim Trier's official pen since 2001 (and the short film Still), until Julie's latest success in 12 chapters, barely signs his second feature film with The Innocents. In this funeral drama story, the viewer follows two young sisters Ida and Anna (carriers of a severe form of autism), who move into a suburban block in the middle of summer. They and other children will awaken to psychic powers that will turn their lives upside down. Sometimes it only takes a little to understand the intentions of a feature film. From the first sequences, Eskil Vogt does not play the card of pure dread or a gloomy atmosphere. On the contrary, the very bright photography and the beautiful naivety fully embrace the image of The Innocents. Constantly attached to children, the camera does not care much about adult characters. But far from the codes of "teen" or "young adult movie", the filmmaker does not aspire to create moving and evolving figures. On the contrary, it will be up to us, the groggy spectators, to change our vision of the protagonists of this story.
Inversion of values
Eskil Vogt hammered it (feel free to leaf through our interview with him): he doesn't believe in abrupt changes in characterizations in movies. His work is therefore oriented towards the point of view. From a young autistic woman who is initially seen unable to put on her shoes, he transforms her into a superheroine that looks like inspired by the Phoenix of the X-Men. Like his first feature film, Blind, which revolved around a blind woman, it seems natural to him to stage characters "broken mouths", which are revealed according to the adventures. The objective is fully achieved, from this point of view, for The Innocents. 
Similarly, around the various characterizations open up a multiplicity of genres that would not have denied Korean cinema. Sometimes social drama, fantasy thriller and pure moment of anguish, the film disturbs, moves and sometimes frightens in the same sequence. Eskil Vogt does not hesitate to become a filmmaker of quotes, when he calls on manga culture (we think of Tetsuo's trajectory in Akira by Katsuhiro Ôtomo or Children's Dreams – Dômu -, by the same author), or American fantasy cinema (Josh Trank's Chronicle or the works of M. Night Shyamalan). Graduated from La Fémis in 2004, there is no doubt that the Norwegian director likes to juggle feelings and sensations and succeeds with The Innocents, the almost perfect shot. Because it is in its staging that the film impresses. Especially in this brilliant work around textures, referring to childhood memories, and more precisely the obsession with discovery through touch. Vogt and his cinematographer Sturla Brandth Grøvlen (Drunk or Victoria's extraordinary sequence shot) persist just as sickly in reproducing this sensuality through images.
The Young Peril
The author takes the opportunity to mark the retina thanks to a strong imagery, between the blocks of buildings partitioning the space and the apartments reminiscent of prison cells. This verticality of the staging, which contrasts with the close framing on the characters, once again fleshes out a work of an already insolent richness. 
And how not to highlight the work on sound (awarded at the European festival prize), here essential to transcribe as much disgust as anguish. All wrapped in a mostly warm colorimetry. The solar aura of this agonizing naivety is never shown negatively, the filmmaker refuses any moral judgment. The disturbing aspect of the film, as well as the pure cinema experience, is increased tenfold. It is also the thematic work that sanctifies The Innocents as a real shock. Through this fantastic story embellished with terrifying sequences, the fight is played from two points of view. That of a childhood disillusioned by parental imprisonment and, de facto, the look of unfair parents in the face of the setbacks of their offspring. And it is the latter that makes the feature film exciting. Eskil Vogt reveals his personal obsessions (also being a father) in fleshed out and disturbing characterizations of realism, without any taboo. "It's hard to be a parent," he said in our interview with him. From the absent father, to the mother on the verge of mental cracking, this idea is beautifully transcribed in this genre film. A real slap in the face of this cinephilic beginning of the year, The Innocents shines with its protean manner and thematic density. An agonizing and solar film about childhood and parenthood, it may well touch the hearts of the most seasoned spectators. And also allows us to wonder about the collaboration with Joachim Trier. Of the two authors, wouldn't Eskil Vogt finally be the real filmmaker? For sure, his next projects will be to follow very closely. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bw4OuGfnaCk
