Reading a lot of the interesting comments people have made about this film, it's obvious most didn't understand it.I admit this includes me. I enjoy an original idea for a movie, one that makes you think, but if it is too obscure surely that defeats the object? A lot of the comments mention paedophiles, an overused word that's fashionable at the moment.I'm a bloke but ye Gods, these were tiny little girls and not sexual. Someone mentioned the bathing and said they were uncomfortable with it. Nobody was nude! If a scene such as this makes a person less than happy, I suggest it says a lot about that person's mind. David Hamilton's 'Bilitis' has a scene where a group of schoolgirls strip off and go gamboling in the sea, that is certainly done, (in my view) to titillate. Innocence isn't at all like that. Europeans such as the French and Germans have, it seems to me, a lot healthier attitude to sex than either the Brits' or the US who tend to look for an ulterior motive in anything. Having said that- There is an interview with director Lucile Hadzihalilovic on the DVD, in it she mentions words to describe the movie, such as paradise, prison, nature, appealing and interesting.She says the film is essentially sensual and a claustrophobic universe. Also says that there is no violence and nothing offensive in it. It interested me to hear her say that women would identify with it easier than men, as their own view of young girls will be evoked. For some that may be problematic, for others, not at all. Read in that what you will chaps. There are few sights more pleasurable than a happy female, (of any age.) I remember an old saying, - 'Little girls, like butterflies, need no excuse.'

Directed by controversial auteur Gaspar Noé's wife, 'Innocence' is a calmer and less shocking movie than any in her husband's oeuvre. Whereas Noé goes for exploitation, Lucile Hadzihalilovic prefers intimacy and subdued emotion. (What a nightmare it was writing out her name and I couldn't even get the accent marks.) 'Innocence' is slow, thoughtful and symbolic. It's about a closed society of girls living in a beautiful, green park surrounded by a wall. They are brought there in a coffin and leave when they grow old enough (unless they break the rules, in which case they have to stay forever as servants). Make of this what you will - the point isn't in solving mysteries but in examining childhood anxieties through these unusual circumstances. How the arrangement affects the girls, how they are raised, what they grow to be, these are more important questions than 'who is doing this?', 'why are they there?', 'why the coffins' etc. although some mysteries do get resolved.

Visually the movie is absolutely beautiful. The girls all wear white and are trained in ballet, which gives us delightful scenes of practicing the art of dancing. The setting is shadowy and remote, the waters are still and the leaves are green in the night, the buildings old mansions. Even the opening credits are tasteful and stylish.

I've seen some criticism on the fact that there is some pre-pubescent nudity in the movie. It's art you puritans. It's not like the girls are sexualized by the camera, if that happens it's all inside your head. Shame on you.