Innocence (2000) Reviews

• Luminous

  burgan62032004-10-02

  Paul Cox's "Innocence" is a beautiful, poignant gem that deserves your attention. It is a film that manages to be both realistic and completely uncynical at the same time(an unusual achievement these days). The story concerns two people who were lovers as teenagers, separated, and meet again fifty years later. Upon meeting again they realize that they're still in love. It probably sounds sickeningly corny but it doesn't play that way. Cox details how the reigniting of their affair affects the people around them(friends, his daughter, her son and husband)and allows time for exquisitely intelligent conversations, my favorite of which takes place between the male protagonist(Charles Tingwell)and a priest concerning the reality of God. "Innocence" is luminous.Seek it out.

• An experience of pure joy!

  prose2001-01-23

  This film took my breath away. It's been many months, perhaps years, since I last felt so moved by a feature film. Paul Cox has certainly outdone himself with this one. There were times when I was reminded of `A Woman's Tale', his offering from around ten years ago, particularly during the discussions about life, death and love. In particular, his theme about death being a part of life continues in this feature. The performances of Tingwell, Blake and Norris are outstanding, and the scenes of intimacy are tasteful and beautiful. The Australian scenes were filmed in Adelaide, and this city scrubs up well and does the story justice. Cox makes ample use of his usual visual signatures - faces through glass doors, reflections in water, wind chimes, caged birds, people talking from the other side of trees in autumnal glory. However, for me, the scene in the church when Andreas plays `Jerusalem' on the pipe organ, managed to gather together the visual with the aural, and deliver a hefty dose of the emotional as well. An astonishing film, and the most believable love story I have ever seen on the big screen.

• The attempt rates a 10; the result... no higher than a 6

  JulMel2001-08-19

  As a woman of 'a certain age' I speak from experience. The sentimentality seemed to me to be excessive. I found the story to be plausible, and the cast superb; it was in the execution that Paul Cox revealed an idealistic approach to men and women in love (at any age). I swear I aged an entire year during this 90-minute experience. I found myself taking deep breaths, wanting to say "Move it along, Paul, give up the ponderosity, let's see the amazing vitality that a love affair injects into formerly perfunctory lives. (That, unfortunately, happened in only one scene ... at the home of friends.) The flashbacks to the young lovers seemed repetitious because there was no progression, no development of the characters Again, I wanted to say, "We get it, Paul, we get it, they were in love--and no different from any couple in love." The ending could have been so much more interesting if Mr. Cox had not, indeed, taken the easy way out. However, I salute the effort to depict us oldsters as something other than grumpy grannies/gramps or eccentric fools.

• Sweet but straining for effect

  howard.schumann2002-11-18

  " They've (the audience) been desensitized -- they've been Pulp Fiction-ized. I don't condemn that, but we cannot live without love, we cannot live like this. At the end of this film, I wanted to say that love is the only thing that matters, and those who think that is naïve are wrong." -- Paul Cox. In Innocence, a sweet film by Australian director, Paul Cox, a couple approaching seventy rekindle a love affair that started almost fifty years ago. Andreas (Charles "Bud" Tingwell), a widowed organist and music teacher, decides to write to Claire (Julia Blake), the woman he was in love with in Belgium in his youth. Claire has been putting up with a joyless marriage for the last twenty years with her husband John (Terry Norris) and agrees to meet Andreas to catch up on things. I guess you know where this is going. That's right, the two pick up right where they left off. John is hurt by his wife's infidelity and comes off as obtuse, even though it is evident that Claire has never taken any responsibility for the quality of their relationship. It is nice to see that at least one director realizes that people over the age of thirty can actually experience physical sensation; however, will someone please tell Mr. Cox that there is more to growing old than talking about memories and anticipating death. Mr. Cox is an honest filmmaker who has his heart in the right place and no doubt wishes to restore some humanity to the cinema. I applaud him for that. Unfortunately, for me, this work comes across as strained and somewhat precious. It plays like a seventy-something TV movie special with all the pretensions of a serious art film. Cox uses dream sequences, flashbacks, jump cuts, and poetic music as if he was operating from a manual about how to make a serious art film. Most of the lovemaking is suggested and is always in good taste but even this is a problem. If your point is that older people are still capable of romantic love, then don't be afraid to show it. The theme of the renewal of love after many years can be moving and poetic as in the magnificent novel of Gabriel Garcia-Marquez, "Love in the Time of Cholera". While the novel had fully-realized characters, here I found the lovers so ordinary and uninteresting that I had difficulty making any emotional connection with them. Tingwell speaks his lines in a flat monotone and does not exude much charisma. I think the biggest problem I had was the film's overreaching for effect. Repetitious flashbacks of the young lovers and ersatz profundity add up for me to an unsatisfying experience. That the actors perform as well as they do under the circumstances is a tribute to their skill and professionalism. Over and over, the characters are asked to recite endless cliches that sound like they come from "Touched by an Angel". For example: "Each phase of life has its own kind of love", and "If God were called Beauty or Love, I would believe in Him", and "What really matters is love, everything else is rubbish", and "She wants to be needed, that's the way women are", and "Love becomes more real the closer it comes to death", and "I'm suffering but you don't care". All that is missing is Ryan O' Neal saying that love means never having to say you're too old. At the end Claire says to Andreas, "Let's go somewhere where we can shed a few tears together". On this last point, I would join them. For a film that is full of sincerity but becomes lost in its own unctuous self-importance, perhaps a few tears might be in order.

• Complexity and maturity make this film almost unique.

  tfdill2002-06-08

  "Innocence" is uncompromising in its effort to explore a plausible human drama, refusing to offer simple or gratifying solutions. The conclusion of the film might seem a cop-out, but it is moving and credible (and had been dramatically prepared in earlier dialogue), and even the final voiceover avoids pat answers. The photography is particularly beautiful and the direction reminded me (this might seem farfetched) of Carl Theodor Dreyer--the close attention to facial expressions and the careful placement of the characters within meaningful environments especially evoke that master's style. This is a film that probably could not be shown successfully in any multiplex in the US, but if you can find it at an independent theater (or on video sometime) be sure to see it. I was particularly pleased to note that at least half the audience with whom I saw it at our local independent theater was under 30,and they gave every evidence of valuing it as much as the more senior members, though perhaps for other reasons. This is a great film.