A note about content: this article will discuss the multiple rapes and other forms of sexual and emotional abuse depicted in The Innocents. Accordingly, please take care in watching/reading about this film.
Set against one of the most horrific backdrops in modern human history—Poland during World War II—Anne Fontaine’s brutal yet sensitive film The Innocents (2016) brings the horror of warfare into one of the ostensibly most insular and divinely protected spaces imaginable, the convent.
“Most of our world is rubbish. It’s difficult.” Sitting at a table, listlessly smoking a cigarette, the beloved master artist, animator, and director Hayao Miyazaki contemplates what he finds to be the utter hopelessness and crudeness of life. Despite making some of the most charming, comforting, and not to mention visually stunning animated films of all time, Miyazaki conveys this sentiment quite often. One can find his many rather cynical musings captured in director Mami Sunada’s documentary film THE KINGDOM OF DREAMS AND MADNESS (2013), which delves into Miyazaki’s life as well as the world of production within Studio Ghibili, his animation film studio.