Evolution – Film Review by Helen Major

Director: Lucile Hadžihalilović
Writers:  Lucile Hadžihalilović, Alanté Kavaïté
Stars:  Roxane Duran, Julie-Marie Parmentier, Max Brebant, Nissim Renard

Evolution is only the second feature-length film by French writer and director Lucile Hadžihalilović, who debuted with her first film, Innocence, over ten years ago. This is described as a sort of companion piece to that first film, though you don’t need to have seen the first to watch the second. It revolves around a group of young boys, all roughly nine or ten years old, living on a secluded, rocky island with a group of mysterious women. Their lives revolve around strict routine and questionable medical procedures, and that is how it would continue for the foreseeable future. But when one of the boys, Nicola, sees something distressing in the ocean early on, we see a path of resistance sparked that carries throughout the film.

This film is one with many secrets, and little inclination to give them up to you. It doesn’t provide you with many answers to the questions it poses, but because of this you can take from it what you like. Through it there are thematic threads of gender politics, maternity, abortion, female pleasure, ethical medicine, autonomy, loss of innocence, the transition into adulthood, existentialism – you can view it through a thousand different critical lenses and find symbolic evidence to support your argument. This fact will suit some people, and frustrate others. So if you’re the type of person who thrives on narrative pay off, I’d give this one a miss. If you enjoy a good philosophical musing, however, this might be for you.

The soundscape is sparse. There is hardly any music used in the film, and the soundtrack alternates predominantly between sounds of the ocean, or ambient noise within the relevant environment – mostly silence. The script is also carefully controlled and deliberately repressed. None of the information is relayed to the viewer through dialogue, you’re forced to make deductions based on visual cues.

Despite the visual nature of the film – or maybe, even, because of it – I found it to be only sporadically stimulating, and inconsistent in its ability to maintain atmosphere. It flip-flopped between drab domesticity, and utterly shocking bizarreness. There are moments of such eeriness, you genuinely want to look away from the screen, though of course you can’t. And there are many moments that are so shockingly graphic that that they might be imprinted on my long term memory for good – this is definitely not a film for anyone squeamish about needles or medical procedures. And yet, there were many moments where it lost my attention. Sometimes the absence of a conversation, or the over extension of a visual sequence was just enough to loosen the immersion, and make me wonder what dinner was going to be.

The plot of this film is not strong, not in the conventional sense at least. Thematically, however, it’s something to feast upon. So if you enjoy watching film-makers break down the traditional barriers of storytelling, and you’re up for 82 minute of hard work, then this might just be different enough to thrill you.