Directed by:
Jan HřebejkScreenplay:
Petr JarchovskýCinematography:
Martin ŠáchaComposer:
Vladivojna La ChiaCast:
Aňa Geislerová, Ondřej Vetchý, Hynek Čermák, Zita Morávková, Anna Kameníková, Luděk Munzar, Miroslav Hanuš, Alena Mihulová, Daniel Czeizel, Rebeka Lizlerová (more)Plots(1)
You'll never get rid of love. It can get very quick to fall from the top to the very bottom. Sometimes, one little sentence is enough to wreck everything you'd been building. A renowned doctor and loved father and husband faces an indictment of a felony. He quickly finds himself in custody which is a place very hard for anyone to prove innocent, mainly when the opponent is being helped by a person likely motivated by a personal revenge. Well, the truth is said to beat lies and hatred. Nevertheless, that doesn't necessarily mean victory. Sometimes it's just a break before another, a whole lot more challenging fight. Especially when in the endeavor to save yourself, you sacrifice secrets that were to be kept hidden forever, because they are too dangerous for you and your loved ones. (official distributor synopsis)
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Reviews (9)
It goes something like this: It looks good, but it's not good. Hřebejk certainly knows how to make films, he knows how to choose his actors and music, he uses imaginative camera angles and even an ordinary conversation looks interesting thanks to these aspects... But the screenplay that Jarchovský wrote this time is terrible. I've actually seen two (or three) films connected by an awkward transition, which was probably supposed to take my breath away and make me say "Well, that's really something", but that didn't happen. I honestly suffered through the last third of Innocence. It’s a pity about Ondřej Vetchý, who had practically nothing to do and was still just Ondřej Vetchý, it’s a pity about Luděk Munzár, who was completely useless, and it’s a pity about Anna Geislerová, who also just repeated several characters from her acting past. The two and a half stars I give are purely for Hřebejk's work, and I round up perhaps only for Zita Morávková. But I truly hesitate to do so.
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The idea of family dialogue and sweet-natured atmosphere is close to my heart. So close that I would never have attributed Innocence to the creative duo of Jan Hřebejk and Petr Jarchovský. The latter's script transforms an innocent melodrama into a complex relationship-tragic fresco, where every line of dialogue has its firm place and no character appears in it just because. The trailer’s lure of a Czech Lolita suddenly seems very misleading. Moreover, the way the story reveals its true nature is unprecedented in a Czech film setting. Hřebejk himself does not drag down the script with any usual softening, his perspective is exceptionally accurate this time in suffocating shots that emphasize an unusually personal approach to the characters. When combined with excellent performances (led by the traditionally infallible Ondřej Vetchý and perfectly cast Hynek Čermák, who seems tailor-made for this role), this is a minor Czech film event that arrived quietly and unobtrusively in cinemas, but can now grow beyond its borders. 85% for a drama that only few would have dared attempt.
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In the first decade of his directing career, Hřebejk aroused expectations and with at least two titles, he managed to tune in to the needs of Czech society to reconcile so that the wolf would be fed and the goat would remain whole, along with recent history. In later times, his work instead caused doubts. He acts as a shooter suffering from conjunctivitis, so he relies on his instincts and blindly fires. Maybe it will work out. In the context of this trend, Innocence is relatively passable, but in no way good. It is decently directed, and even Geislerová performs decently, but two stories in one are too much. I would have been content with one criminal case seen through to its end, where it would be about a broader statement about the time and society, and where I wouldn't feel constructiveness, greed, and creative helplessness. I will leave three stars because as part of Czech contemporary production, it is still above average, but I won't raise my overall impression above 50%.
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After Kawasaki's Rose, I was angry at Innocence for a long time because it was impossible to rehabilitate Hřebejk and Jarchovský that quickly and give them a chance again. But if I could bite the bullet and get into a certain frame of mind, I can open myself to Innocence like to no other project. The notion of innocence is explored here from many angles, and the Geislerová/Linhartová similarity suggests an ambition beyond the mirroring so much adored in Persona. Fortunately, Hřebejk doesn't copy Bergman mindlessly, and instead he just rewrites some things from the history of world cinema, and that in and of itself is not a crime. It would have been a crime if he had left the one scene with Radim Špáček in the final cut, which would have made the point a farce. The real futility of the final form thus remains only the highly questionable musical score by Vladivojna La Chia, which Hřebejk, unfortunately, used again in his other work on the series Head Over Heels. All in all, Vetchý is the acting king of Innocence, Munzar nicely underlines in his scenes a certain satire of the whole story and a relativization of the fact that Geislerová plays someone who suffers from the fact that she is no longer 14 (which is classic acting in the style we are used to from her).
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Another provincial attempt at a complex psychological family drama that at times looks quite worldly, but this impression is confined to a fairly well thought out surface again. It continues to amaze me how many narrative means Hřebejk and Jarchovský are capable of using to produce stories that are so barren, sterile and genderless in terms of any urgency and opinion. Am I to think that Innocence isn't entirely embarrassing, that the actors are good and that modern storytelling means are used here? The more the creative helplessness, blandness and lack of captivating rhythm stand out. For God's sake, when is there going to be anything that's been able to compete with at least a mediocre Scandinavian drama about pathological phenomena in society?
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