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This richly imaginative debut feature immerses the viewer in the mysterious world of an all-female boarding school, where the pre-pubescent pupils are being prepared for future reproductive duties outside of the establishment's forbidding walls. Adapted from a short story by the 19th-century German playwright Frank Wedekind, and impressively acted by its young cast, Innocence is a compelling blend of 'realism' and fantasy, with not a jolly hockey stick in sight.

Innocence is dedicated to Gaspar Noe, director Hadzihalilovic's partner and regular collaborator, yet her film eschews the sensationalist shock tactics of Noe's ±õ°ù°ùé±¹±ð°ù²õ¾±²ú±ô±ð in favour of a much more ambiguous and poetic approach. Set within a woodland forest, the school itself is simultaneously an idyll and a prison: the girls, aged between six and 12 and dressed in identical white uniforms and sporting different coloured ribbons in their hair, are shown blissfully swimming and larking about in the river. But completely separated from their families, they are also forbidden from attempting to leave the grounds, or from asking questions about what goes on at night in the main building. As their teacher Mademoiselle Eva (Marion Cotillard), insists, "Obedience is the only path that leads to happiness."

"ATMOSPHERICALLY SHOT"

Hadzihalilovic maintains the mood of eerie ambiguity, using a complex soundscape of recurring noises - gushing water, ticking clocks, the cries of animals, the rumble of underground trains - to heighten the sense of foreboding. Atmospherically shot by Benoît Debie, Innocence never does explain the strange events in its midst, but this unsettling evocation of girlhood concludes with a release of feeling that is genuinely euphoric.

In French with English subtitles.