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Reviews
Innocence (2004)
Urgent Warning!
This story was filmed in a beautiful natural setting, a private park and very old mansion-like school, with a cast of cute little girls wearing short-skirted uniforms. There is a lot of skin and underwear showing in this story, and one nude scene (very brief), so there should be a warning on the case: Attention Prudes: little girls have bodies; get used to it.
"It may be hard for you to understand, but obedience is the only path to happiness."
That's how a teacher explains why the girls in this boarding school are effectively imprisoned, with no visits or other contact with the outside world. The girls want to understand, but they don't waste time worrying about reasons. They enjoy swimming, dancing, playing. The ones who do obey get to leave eventually.
The kids are portrayed realistically, and the simple photography (all natural light) adds realism. There are birds singing in the forest and the music is like what you hear in a toddler's music box. The children's sweet voices are like music too, adding to the tranquil atmosphere, with slow, soft, quiet dialogs – nothing like Mary-Kate and Ashley.
There is no complex plot, important mystery to solve, or development of characters. This is simply a story about the beauty of youth that exists no matter what the external circumstances are. "Innocence" is an achievement in many ways, above all for getting past the censors, but everything in the film really is innocent.
I don't understand why this film makes some viewers feel "uncomfortable." Maybe they worry that a few rare individuals might find the images "erotically" stimulating and go out and abuse some real child. But there is now evidence that even pure pornography actually reduces sex crimes.
If you enjoy visual beauty and the sensual pleasure of sound, this film is worth experiencing more than once.
- Frank Adamo, author of the documentary "Girl Becomes Woman."
Angela (1995)
Tragic and Profound
This is a complex story about insanity, and the thin line between insanity and religious superstition.
Two little girls are neglected by their parents, and the older girl (Angela) imagines or hallucinates seeing and talking to the devil. The younger girl has a scary moment imagining or hallucinating too. Nobody teaches these kids about reality, and in the end that lack of attention becomes a horrible disaster. The ending has such impact that the second time I saw the film I turned it off before the ending.
The girls are absolutely adorable and the photography does them justice. There is one nude scene (body suits?) that is completely innocent. The two girls are portrayed realistically most of the time, so that you don't really mind the occasional lapses in realism. The children are so lovable that the ending is doubly tragic: you want the story of their lives to go on forever.
A great scene is when the two girls sneak away from the adults, find their way to a carnival, and meet a young man who is apparently a pedophile. They unwisely follow him to a somewhat secluded place, and he kisses Angela. But the child imagines he is an angel, and tells him "I know who you are." The poor guy is frightened to death that he's about to be arrested and runs away!
There are many other great moments of comedy and irony in this film. Despite the lack of high-budget action or special effects, there isn't a boring moment in the whole movie. The writer/director is a creative genius, and the music is beautiful too!
- Frank Adamo, author of the documentary "Girl Becomes Woman."
Lolita (1997)
Real Love
"Lolita" has been called the greatest love story of the 20th Century. How is that possible? A pathetic old man loves little girls, and when he finally has the opportunity he exploits an orphan thoroughly and completely. What makes the story great is that it expresses raw emotion, pure passion, real love.
Background: The author of the original story, Vladimir Nabokov, was a literary genius whose portrayal of the pedophile "Humbert Humbert" is so powerful and realistic that readers suspect the Russian-born author must have been a pedophile himself. However, as Boyd's definitive 2-volume biography shows, there is no evidence that Nabokov was anything but a mature, happily married heterosexual.
Set in France and the U.S.A., the story begins by describing the early life of the main character, Humbert, who fell in love with a girl, Annabelle, when they were 13. She died suddenly, and he remained fixated on girls aged 9-14 for the rest of his life. Most of the novel (and both film versions) focuses on Humbert in the 1940s when he is in his 40s, and has a relationship with another girl, Lolita, beginning when she is 12.
Although Humbert is portrayed as a human being rather than an inhuman monster, the author doesn't romanticize Humbert's imbalanced mind or his crimes against the young girl. This is an educational story of how a man should NOT treat young girls. Humbert's relationship with Lolita soon turns tragic, and he eventually looses her to another pedophile in the story, Quilty, portrayed as a creative artist who is Humbert's rival for Lolita'a affection. Unlike the opportunist Quilty, Humbert didn't consider the young girl a score, she was his redemption. All the main characters in the story die eventually.
Despite being a respected professor and acclaimed writer, Nabokov was unable to find a conventional publisher for "Lolita" and had to settle for a pornography publisher in France. There were attempts to censor the book in France and Britain, until it was finally published in the U.S. Various versions of the book have since sold over 40 million copies, and there have been two film versions – one in 1962 and the other in 1997, as well as many books and dissertations about the author, and even a biography of his remarkable wife, Vera. "Lolita" isn't Nabokov's best novel (I prefer "Ada"), but it is by far his most popular. I highly recommend listening to actor Jeremy Irons' inspired reading of the book on audio CD.
The First Film: Stanley Kubrick did a great job of making this controversial story acceptable to the American public. Nabokov wrote the screenplay, but Kubrick didn't follow it very closely. The theme music and Peter Sellers (as Quilty) give the film a comic tone, as is common in treating sexual themes in Europe. It's in black and white, which contributes to the sense of history.
The Second Film: Adrian Lyne's version offers a more accurate presentation of the story (historically). The most beautiful part of the film is the meeting between Humbert as a boy and his child-love Annabelle. There is more physical contact in the second film, but still no nudity or actual sex. In some ways there is more hysteria over sex between different age groups today than in the past, so maybe Lyne felt inhibited? The theme music is certainly more somber than in the first film.
Both films feature beautiful photography and are well worth seeing, now more than ever due to the current mass hysteria over sex between different age groups (14-year-olds on "sex offender" registries for engaging in sex play with 9-year-olds!) Some people today are horrified by the subject of this story, apparently without being aware that the tragic ending is entirely consistent with political correctness.
A defect in both films is that Lolita is not played by a 12-year-old actress, the same problem that exists when you see a performance of "Romeo and Juliet" featuring middle-aged opera singers. There is a need for a third film version for that reason alone. A 12-year-old actress can easily be made up to look like a 16-year-old for the end of the story. If you're willing to finance a third film version, I'll write the screenplay myself!
- Frank Adamo, author of the documentary "Girl Becomes Woman."