Never let your guard down! If there is one piece of advice to give to spectators who go to see the latest film by Japanese director Kore-eda, it is this, as Innocence is full of nuances and details which only make sense as you move forward in the story. On the film poster, the faces of two children covered in mud pose questions. What happened to them? What is the link with this first sequence which sees the firefighters rush in, all sirens blaring, to put out the fire in a hostess bar? A rumor spreads: Minato and Yori’s teacher frequented the place.
And now young Minato, who is raised by his mother alone, begins to tell her that this teacher told him that he had a pig’s brain. The furious mother comes to school, asks the educational team. You have to see them bowing to her apologizing. She would just like to have an explanation. She will never have them. A questionnaire will be distributed to the children to judge the teacher who will be subjected to a self-criticism session in front of the parents before being fired. China under Mao? No, contemporary Japan.
It is this Japan, which hides a muted violence beneath an apparent placidity, that the filmmaker wants to show us. There is therefore a rough aspect throughout the first part of the film which is jarring. The characters seem steeped in secrets, lies fly and rumors poison relationships.
Minato’s mother thinks her son is being bullied but it is Yori, in the same class, who is the scapegoat for the other children. The director has been unfathomable since the accidental death of her granddaughter, but her colleagues say it was she who was driving the car that caused it. The increasingly desperate professor relaxes by flushing out typos in published books. His girlfriend will end up leaving him – it feels like Murakami’s house. Little by little, the suspense lifts like the fog on Mount Fuji.
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Based on a screenplay by Yuji Sakamoto, which won an award in July at the Cannes Film Festival, Kore-eda renews his way of making a thriller. It adopts a three-part structure: the story is told successively by Minato’s mother, by the teacher then by the child himself. This part is the most beautiful. From dark, the film becomes luminous. It gains in gentleness to end in the dazzling light of the aftermath of a storm. The music of Ryuichi Sakamoto, who died last March, fits perfectly with the moods of Kore-eda’s swirling camera.
Confusing but subtle, Innocence also attempts to describe the awakening of a feeling of love in adolescents. Minato, fatherless, overprotected by his mother, and Yori, abandoned by a violent father, will discover that together they can let go. An abandoned wagon on a railway line invaded by the forest will serve as a refuge for them to play. Adults will drop their masks and become allies. In a stunning sequence, Minato learns to blow into a trombone to relieve himself of what he cannot reveal. Kore-eda or the magician.
The Note of Figaro: 3/4.
