Evolution
classified 15 SPlease note: This was screened in May 2016
Put aside everything you know about the birds and the bees in Lucile Hadžihalilovic's (Innocence) mesmerising blend of aquatic body horror and surreal fantasy, that proposes an entirely new paradigm to explain where babies come from and a truly unique perspective on the concept of evolution.
Nicolas (Max Brebant), a 10 year old boy on the cusp of adolescence, lives an austere and isolated life with his mother in a mysterious and remote seaside community – one seemingly populated only by women and other uniform mother-son pairings of boys of his own age. Surrounded by a tempestuous ocean, Nicolas is haunted by the visceral sight of a dead boy that he discovers whilst diving. His dubious and cold mother’s faint attempts to comfort him – "The sea makes you think horrible things” - is a consolation that proves prophetic: as the boys are subjected to mysterious medical treatments at the local hospital. Increasingly suspicious that his mother and the nurses are lying to him and that something more sinister is going on, Nicholas is determined to find out what they are up to. And what he discovers signals the beginning of a nightmare, as a disturbing vision of conception, birth and child-rearing eerily begins to unfurl.
Featuring some of the most mesmerising underwater cinematography this side of Jacques Cousteau and containing undertones of the weird horror fiction of H P Lovecraft; this is an evocative, enthralling and deeply mysterious work of dark beauty from one of contemporary cinema’s most inspired dreamers.