Innocence

Based on an obscure 19th-century symbolist novella by Frank Wedekind — the German dramatist whose cycle of "Lulu" plays served as the basis for G.W. Pabst's classic PANDORA'S BOX — Lucile Hadzihalilovic's haunting feature is an uncanny allegory of female adolescence. Like the dank, dark tunnels that run below the idyllic park in which it's set, there's a sinister undercurrent to life at a school for prepubescent girls. Iris (Zoe Auclair) arrives at the school in a locked coffin, as all new students do, emerging like a butterfly when she reaches her new home. After being introduced to the four older girls with whom she'll be living — each of the school's five houses i...