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.
Direction
Hadžihalilović's hypnotic, wordless nightmare logic.
Cinematography
Underwater womb-caves and bleached hospital corridors.
Sound
The squelch, the drip, the absence of answers.
Director
Lucile Hadžihalilović
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Hadžihalilović, partner of Gaspar Noé, crafts the feminine inverse of his shock cinema — all suggestive dread where he deploys explosive trauma.
The film's aquatic imagery draws from evolutionary theory and H.P. Lovecraft's 'The Shadow Over Innsmouth,' reframed through a maternal-feminist lens.
FR
