Film Shapes

In the first ten minutes or so of The Innocents cute, blonde nine-year-old Ida (Rakel Lenora Fløtta) eats a lolly that's been stuck on the car window, pinches her autistic sister's leg, HARD, gozzes over the balcony of her new apartment and puts broken glass shards into her sister's shoe. Pathological or sociopathic, maybe, but innocent? Hmmm. Of course, there's a lot more to it than this, not least the other children in the film - Ida's sister, Anna (Alva Brynsmo Ramstad); Ben (Sam Ashraf); and Aisha (Mina Yasmin Bremseth Asheim). This quartet dominate the film, leaving the parents to play very minor roles. In fact, we know very little about the adults, though we can surmise that Ben and Aisha's respective mums have it tough due to some nicely subtle shots (Aisha's mum weeping behind an open cupboard door, Ben's mum smoking nervously). Ida and Anna's folks are also struggling, mainly with concerns about Anna's condition, but also moving to a ne...

This debut feature from Finnish writer/director, Hanna Bergholm is almost perfectly pitched. It's about a young girl, Tinja, played by Siiri Solalinna (also, amazingly, her screen debut), who is struggling to live up to her mother's exacting expectations. Mother, Äiti, played by Sophia Heikkilä, wants her daughter to win the school gymnastics competition and show the world through her 'lifestyle' vlogs what a great family they are. Rounding out this family are downtrodden husband, Isä (Jani Volanen) and irritating son, Matias (Oiva Ollila), though they all seem to be only mildly on board with the whole social media enterprise.  At the beginning of the film, a panicky blackbird gets trapped in the living room of the family house and smashes up the place. After catching it, Tinja asks if she can release it outside. Mother, instead, snaps its neck and tells Tinja to dispose of it. Later that night, Tinja is awoken by a shrill squawking and upon searching the creepy forest ...