2015 ‘Évolution’ Directed by Lucile Hadzihalilovic
11-year-old Nicolas lives with his mother in a seaside housing estate. The only place that ever sees any activity is the hospital. It is there that all the boys from the village are forced to undergo strange medical trials that attempt to disrupt the phases of evolution.
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Lucile Hadzihalilovic’s unforgettably unsettling Evolution is set on a rustic island somewhere off the coast of France, perhaps in the stretch of azure sea between the YA dystopia of The Giver and the chilly urban streets of Under the Skin. It's a place where single women with white brows and black pupils raise a generation of young boys without fathers (nowhere to be seen).
During the days, the youths go swimming amongst the coral. At night, their mothers feed their kids a mush of curdled squid ink and inject their skinny arms with a vile sleep-inducing goop they refer to as “medicine.” One evening, a curious little boy named Nicolas (Max Brebant) manages to resist his dose, slipping out of the spartan house he shares with his mom (Julie-Marie Parmentier). He follows her to the shore, and that’s when things start to get weird.
Second watch cements that not only is this one of the best films ever made, but it's actually a perfect hybrid between narrative & experimental/affective/gestural/whatever filmmaking. Endlessly beautiful, the sound design is perfect, there is nowhere I want to visit/live/exist/die more than Lanzarote, the Mediterranean Sea is literally the home that I ache for, the elliptical experimental medical facility narrative + bodies in touch with the sea + an unknowable need for escape is literally everything. I am so so so so so glad I can revisit this one regularly now.
There are many films that I've seen throughout my life that are perhaps "better" than this, even within the confines of my personal canon, but I can't think of another…
Lucile Hadzihalilovic's Evolution is mystifying & Manuel Dacosse's cinematography was devastating, the two of them came together to create a breathtaking work of art that will haunt me for weeks to come.
On an even less sophisticated & spoilerish note, I have always been super into the idea of humans evolving from the sea & vaguely Lovecraftian fish people with bleached eyebrows, so, this was an easy 5-stars.
Under The Sign Of The Starfish (Or Sea-Star)
Where Did We Come From? Where Are We Now? Where Are We Going?
How Are We Who We Are? Our We Our Antecedents? To What Extent Are We What Comes From Us But Leaves Us Behind?
Many times there have been where I wish I could leave this body or have it be changed so radically it is no longer this or something better, something different. We may not survive ourselves. We may not survive the conditions which we have brought upon us. How do we adapt to a world shaped by our own ignorance of the world?
The Future Is Transhuman Or Not At All, At Least Not For Us.
Us…
This film reminded me a lot of Cure for Wellness and Goodnight, Mommy, but I enjoyed it more than either of those films. It leaves you with a lot of questions, but it's incredibly gorgeous and hypnotically paced.
Visually striking and beautifully shot.
In terms of weirdness, from a scale of 0 to Upstream Color, this one hasn't quite reached the top.
Christiane is a young boy who lives in an isolated village by a rocky shore. The village is entirely populated by adult women and young boys. All the women are physically similar and the drab monotone listlessness pervades. Christiane finds what appears to be a body beneath the waves while swimming but his mother seems dismissive. She takes Christian to a medical facility where he and other boys are subjected to strange procedures...and then it gets weird(er).
This French lyrical Art-House Sci-Fi offering is - as you can tell - hard to categorise. Some elements of it work very well - particularly the cinematography with underwater sequences of the Ocean flora and fauna that David Attenborough would appreciate. The setting…
A group of boys and their strange women care-takers live in a remote seaside village. Swimming, medicine, starfish ... YAWN ... swimming... SNORE ... drawing pictures ... SNORE ... fetus in a jar ... SNORE ... he escaped ... SNORE
So much ilk which looks like silk. Starfishes and bitches, be they sea witches? Pregnancy a theme, O boy thou shalt squeam! ~4/5~
'Evolution' begins with a child, dead, suspended in water before a starfish is found stuck to the body. These two details tell you everything you need to know about Lucile Hadzihalilovic's 'Innocence' follow up. While her debut focused on a girls only boarding school, in 'Evolution' it's the boys turn in a seaside town presided over by women. Taking to assume them as their mothers, the dead body awakens doubt in the community. Hadzihalilovic's film is another intricately detailed examination. This time, the very nature of maternity, humanity or indeed evolution isunder the microscope and it's a film in keeping with her previously defined stylistic approach. Here the emerald green magical realism is replaced by a sometimes sickly, sometimes beautiful…
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