Reviewed by Rama Gaind.
Writer/director: Eskil Vogt, Rialto Distribution.
Four children who become friends during the summer holidays, and out of sight of the adults, they discover they have hidden powers. It’s while exploring their new-found abilities in the nearby forests and playgrounds, that their innocent play takes a dark turn and strange things begin to happen.
Norwegian film director Vogt (Blind, The Worst Person in the World) says he realised “how radically different you were as a kid, how strongly you felt, and how open you were and even how you experience time in a different way.”
“It was also the fascination you have when you observe your kids, especially when they don’t know you’re there. I felt that was an exciting space to be in.”
Child actors lead this film: Ida – Rakel Lenora Fløttum; Anna – Alva Brynsmo Ramstad; Aisha – Mina Yasmin Bremseth Asheim; and Ben – Sam Ashraf. They are aged seven-to-11-years-old. “When you get to 12, you’re already like a tween and have one foot in the teenage years and discovering your sexuality. That can be a fascinating theme but that’s not the theme of this movie, I wanted to look at childhood as a place before you become an adult, when it’s more fluid, more magical.”
While the story is disturbing, the idea behind the film’s title is intriguing. “I think kids are beyond good and evil or rather before good and evil. But I don’t think children are little angels, that people are born pure. I think children are born without any sense of empathy or morals, we have to teach them that. That’s why I think it’s interesting to see a child doing something that we would call evil in an adult.”
Watching Vogt’s work with cinematographer Sturla Brandth Grøvlen makes you feel like you’re there with the children. You could well be thinking about the magic of your own childhood, about being kids and experiencing the limits of right or wrong. Almost everyone has some kind of memory of that.
- The Innocents is screening in cinemas
