Based on the same source as John Irvin's "The Fine Art of Love: Mine Ha-Ha", German author Frank Wedekind's Mine Haha, aka The Corporeal Education Of Young Girls, director Lucille Hadzihalilovic has created a poetic illustration of the transformation of young girls.

Set in an almost mythical illuminated European forest lies a boarding school for young girls ages 6 to 11. It is a world of strict order without any men. The girls are divided into ages by different colored hair ribbons, they are taught traditions and objects fitting young girls, and the school itself is surrounded by high stone walls without any entrance or exit. It is also a world with a magical logic to it, where the eldest girl will disappear and the new youngest girl will appear in a coffin, without any memory of the outside world.

Hadzihalilovic uses Wedekind's novella loosely. Where Wedekind in his writings criticized the scheinmoral of the upper classes, Hadzihalilovic is more interested in creating a fairy-tale like symbolic depiction of innocence.

Her mise-en-scene is breathtaking. She sets her scenery up natural light, creating almost impressionistic images, using surround colors, the green of the wood and grass, the black of the night, to create contrasts versus the white dresses and colored hair ribbons of the girls.

The world is described thru elements - stone (earth) can be read as secrecy, fire as death, air as life and water as loss of innocence. Two scenes are significant here. One is when one of the girls dares herself to row in a boat, getting her feet wet, which Hadzihalilovic follows by showing the turmoil of the deep water, then rain. The second is the final scene, where the eldest girls have been transported to the world outside, enjoying their freedom in a fountain, amongst boys.

Full of symbolism, the most striking is the butterfly. One reading would suggest it to be a representation of the girls. The mistress of the school has a selection of butterflies on pins, and the girls ballet, wearing fairy wings, makes them appear as butterflies. The butterfly also represents something making a change, from the caterpillar stage to butterfly.

"Innocence" is nothing less than a masterpiece of cinema. It is so delicate in tone, poetic visual porcelain, which uses colors to paint a mythical fable of innocence, hold in place by discipline and terror. Pure cinema magic.

Henrik Sylow