MovieChat Forums > Innocence (2005) Discussion > just a big fat metaphor for a childhood....

just a big fat metaphor for a childhood...

posted 16 years ago by syp218
4 replies | jump to latest

...not that it's a bad thing. just don't expect a storyline or character development. (spoiler approaching) it starts out with a kid in a coffin, the good ole symbol of death and transformation. its the end of infancy onto childhood around when the infant attains a level of selfhood. a period of INNOCENCE! yes just like the title. i have to say the director does capture that balance of wild idyllic paradise and stifling menace quite well, that feeling we have when we're kids of everything being kind of utopic while still kind of like being in a prison. childhood is kind of like a prison, we're under the guidelines of adults and these guidelines temporarly keeps the innocent in and the menacing outside away. thus we get the whole butterfly from chrysalis metaphor. the older girls about to enter adolescene prepare the dance of the butterfly on stage. in the audience is the world of adults, sinister-sexual-and largely male. then their flung into adolescense wide eyed and scared but once they get their with all the boys they dang well like it. you can't get a more sexual metaphor that water spurting straight up out of a fountain and a budding young girl and boy giving each other the eye can you?
like i said there's not a lot of story and i found the first part a little boring. once i got what it was about, it was better. made me use my noggin'.
if this interpration has been posted before then sorry!

[–] robdonn 16 years ago

I agree with pretty much your whole analysis of the film, except for the water fountain at the end. During that scene I was trying to figure out the constant symbolism of the water but I do not believe that its as blatantly tawdry as what you suggest.

Or maybe I'm wrong and the director did in fact intend to end the film with a sexual eruption.

[–] The_Secret_Skull 16 years ago

The fountain was a way of showing the story had come full circle, connecting it with the gushing water in the opening scene. Along with the arrival of the new coffin, this supported the cycle theme. It left me with the feeling that the cycle of events continues as it always has and always will, and I think that's its purpose.

As water never had any phallic or sexual connotations anywhere else in the story, it would have been a film-school-noob mistake to try forcing one in there at the end. So to speak.

[–] TheFilmGuy1 12 years ago

The movie is pretty much about the girls growing up and finding a partner, just like the butterflys they are being compared to by their teachers. A metaphor for growing up and puberty.

[–] xicano2913 12 years ago

I think your analysis of the film is pretty head on, after watching it I had to think for a while about what I just had seen. I knew it was heavily symbolic, and reading what you wrote kind of clears it up for me. The movie works great as art and symbolism, and it really is good for discussion. People can interpret it in a lot of ways. Though I still can't say I really liked it, I'm more into character driven movies with good dialogue.