The Innocents
1961 UK
Dir:Jack Clayton
Stars:Deborah Kerr, Michael Redgrave, Megs
Jenkins, Pamela Franklin
Left:Deborah Kerr, Right:Megs Jenkins
To tell the truth, I'm not an enthusiastic fun of horror movies, because I'm a very very easily scared person
even to such a degree that when I firstly watched Steven Spielberg's "Jaws"(1975) in movie theater, I,
in its literal meaning, jumped out of my seat and was laughed at by everyone around me watching a scene where that
abominable creature suddenly came out of the surface of water and looked as if rushing toward me. Anyway, this
is somewhat exaggerated way of talking about my experience. But, "The Inoccents" is one of such movies
I felt really scared and shivering. It seems that the atmosphere of black & white image is far more effective
than the one in color, especially the one made with the recent state-of-the-art SFX technologies. Because such
kind of advanced technologies easily pick up everything as an input, and leave no room for audience's creative
imagination that is one of absolutely necessary elements for this type of horror movies to be effective. There
must definitely be something in-between or rather should say blank areas (it's really difficult to explain what
I want to say here in English compared to in Japanese which is my mother tongue) toward which audience can project,
and fill with, their own creative imagination, and if from the first those areas are in every detail filled with
some tailor-made images, then the audience can at best passively follow and just accept the course already set
by the movies. In such a state, there would be no imagination whatsoever, and I'm always thinking this is the very
symptom many many recent movies are suffering. But, "The Innocents" isn't among such recent movies, and
leaves the room for creative imagination for its audience. Furthermore, it should be added that this movie doesn't
end up in just another occult monster movie owing to its psychological element. The story based upon Hery James'
famous writing "Turn of the Screw" is very simple; that is, Deborah Kerr comes to a very old house as
a governess, and finds out the fact that the house is haunted by some evil spirit, and struggles to protect two
angelic children from the influence exerted by this evil spirit. Like an occalt story as it may seem from this
brief description, nevertheless this one is not just another horrid occult movie whose primary concern is just
how much the audiences will be scared and horrified. That becomes clear when the final scene casts upon its audience
some doubts about Deborah Kerr's sanity where she kisses a boy on the mouth. By this scene thrown, the meaning
of the whole story suddenly changes its aspect in such a way that what has been presented in all those scenes that
include the one where Deborah Kerr sees the figure of the evil spirit reflected on a window might be just delusions
seen from the perspective of somehow mentally suffered Deborah Kerr's eyes. It can be said that this is a masterly
way of maneuvering psychological aspects, and really throws the audience into a very unstable and ambivalent state
of mind. By the way, about 20 years after, director Jack Clayton made another occult movie titled "Something
Wicked This Way Comes"(1983). Although I have no intention of saying that this one is completely bad, but
even so I have to say that something is missing in this movie. Compared with "The Innocents", it, from
the first to the end, never departs from the realm of occult monster world even though I must admit that the movie
captures the unusual carnival world quite well, and, by comparison, we can know the supelative quality of "The
Innocents" as a horror and, at the same time, a psycological drama. Anyway, I can certainly say this one is
a really good and entertaining horror movie made during the 1960s. Besides, Deborah Kerr is more buautiful here
in this black & white movie than in color movies at that time. I guess some imagination might be working in
this regard too. Additionally saying, this is Pamela Franklin's debut movie, and she is quite impressive here.
