One of the greatest features of the film is that Fontaine avoids simple judgements. The director does not stand on either side of the conflict between faith and science. She does not adopt the atheistic perspective that would create another film about the inner repressions inside the Catholic Church, neither does she let herself follow the theological effusion. Fontaine keeps the distance that enables her to see more.
The existence of philosophical questions connects the film with the works of Dumont and Beavois much as film forms differentiate them (despite the fact that the chief of the camera crew was Caroline Champetier, who was also responsible for the cinematography of Of Gods and Men). Dramaturgy is here much more important than aesthetics as the director of Coco Chanel joins the story of the Polish nuns with the French doctor building the tension well and knowing where it should be lightened with humour.
Before the Polish premiere of The Innocents, the St. Benedict Order raised complaints that the French-Polish film distorts history, showing events that certainly did not occur in any Polish congregation of the St. Benedict Order. There are no reasons to disbelief them, though they prove that Fontaine’s story was misunderstood. The Innocents is not a historical document, nor does it try to evaluate any institution. There is no accusatory tone, which is present in many films about the Catholic Church, nor is there a black and white story about a diabolical supervisor and her suffering charges. Instead we see a lot of empathy and a will to really understand human actions.
In The Innocents the conflict between values is humanized. Thanks to its great acting, a story about the clash of ideas evolves into a fully-developed description of people in doubt seeking the meaning of life. Agata Kulesza, Agata Buzek, Eliza Rycembel, and Lou de Laâge carry the film, but it stolen by Vincent Macaigne, who plays a Jewish doctor entangled in a romance with Mathilde. Despite the fact that he is present on the screen only for a few short periods of time, he manages to get the full attention of the viewers each and every time. However, his role does not change the fact that The Innocents is a story about faith seen from the perspective of women. The film is as subtle as courageous in asking hard, uncomfortable questions.
The Innocents, France, Poland 2016. Dir.: Anne Fontaine. Script: Anne Fontaine, Sabrina B. Karine, Pascal Bonitzer, Alice Vial. Cinematography: Caroline Champetier. Music: Grégoire Hetzel. Cast: Lou de Laâge, Agata Kulesza, Agata Buzek, Eliza Rycembel, Vincent Macaigne, Anna Próchniak, Joanna Kulig, Katarzyna Dąbrowska.
Author: Bartosz Staszczyszyn, March 2016, translated by Antoni Wiśniewski, March 2016