Innocence
(2000)
"Innocence"
moves at the pace of the septuagenarians that it presents
to us. Slow. At times it gets a little dull. It's kinda
like spending the afternoon with your grandparents.
But then, again, like Grandma and Grandpa, it can surprise
you with wit, insight, joyousness and sorrow.
The film, made in Australia, is about a love triangle
formed when two old lovers reunite. Andreas is a widow
in his 70's who has discovered that his lover from his
teen years is living nearby. He has not seen her since
those days but a letter to her results in a meeting
and that meeting sparks his old lover, Claire, to question
her complacency in her marriage. Sleeping with Andreas,
and then telling her husband about it, jolts her mate
into jealousy and anger. This evolves into a questioning
of the love he has taken for granted as well.
There are many wonderful ideas about love going on here.
Eventually, the film seems to suggest that if we treated
our lives and our loves as if we were at the end of
our lives, as if we could die tomorrow, we would have
more true, as well as deeper, more meaningful lives
and relationships. This idea is put into sharp focus
when it is presented in the relationships of older people.
Writer/director Paul Cox uses a marvelous technique
here to point out his themes. Flashbacks of Andreas
and Claire, as teens, are interwoven with the current
story. At times, this can be a bit unsettling (to our
youth culture sensibilities) as the lovemaking of two
teenagers is intercut with the tender lovemaking of
septuagenarians. But the film is handled with honesty
and integrity by all involved. It's just unusual to
see a sex scene between people old enough to be our
grandparents. It catches us off guard for a moment.
Most times, these flashbacks, however, serve to remind
us of the immediacy and urgency of love. The juxtaposition
of young love with it's mad, often seemingly irrational
sexuality against the more assured yet just as immediate
love between an aged couple is quite refreshing and
pointed.
The film ends rather abruptly and its plot seems a bit
contrived. But the film is attempting to make a point
here. And like Bergman or Woody Allen's Bergmanesque
films, the hard focused gaze of the camera into lives
stripped of masks and lies, lives in flux, focuses our
thoughts onto the true nature of existence and love.
"Innocence" makes us remember that death is but a breath
away.
Life and love becomes much more pure and important when
we realize that.
Note:
This is Cox's 21st film.
According to IMDB, there have been films with title
released in 1917, 1923, and 1980.
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