Light up the Void  

Evolution, an immersion into organic and radical cinema

Rare in the French cinematic landscape, Lucile Hadžihalilović moves against the current. Few films, yet an immediately recognizable body of work. With Evolution (2015), she extends the unsettling universe introduced in Innocence, asserting a cinema of atmosphere, silence, and subtle unease.

On a windswept island, boys live under the care of enigmatic women. Movements are repetitive, gazes distant, rules never explained. Quickly, Evolution defies conventional storytelling. Hadžihalilović does not narrate a story in the traditional sense; she creates a mood, a pervasive sense of unease that seeps into every frame.

At the core of the film is the body. A child’s body is observed, manipulated, medicalized. While Innocence explored the education and sexualization of young girls, Evolution examines the transformation of the male body, subverting codes of maternity and reproduction. The mother is no longer a protective figure but a distant, almost inhuman presence. Birth becomes a strange, unsettling, even monstrous experience.

Visually, the film impresses with its formal coherence. Manuel Dacosse’s cinematography, dominated by cold blues and greens, gives the story an aquatic, organic texture. The sea, omnipresent, acts as a primal womb, both origin and threat. Muted sounds, prolonged silences, and slow editing deepen this hypnotic immersion.

Hadžihalilović champions a cinema that refuses explanation. No psychology, no morality, not even clear answers. Evolution belongs to the tradition of auteur fantasy, where horror arises less from what is shown than from what is suggested. A cinema of disturbance and ellipsis, engaging the viewer’s body as much as the imagination.

With Evolution, the director confirms her singularity: a feminine, political, and deeply sensory perspective that turns cinema into an experiential space rather than a narrative one. A film that unsettles, fascinates, and lingers long after the credits roll.

Fiche Technique

Titre : Évolution
Année de production : 2015
Sortie en salles (France) : 16 mars 2016
Durée : 81 minutes
Pays : France, Espagne, Belgique
Genres : Fantastique, science-fiction, horreur
Langue : Français
Format : Couleur, Cinémascope (2,39:1)
Son : Dolby Digital / Dolby 5.1
Classification : Interdit aux moins de 12 ans

Équipe artistique et technique

Réalisation : Lucile Hadžihalilović

Scénario : Lucile Hadžihalilović/Alanté Kavaïté

Production : Les Films du Worso/Noodles Production/Scope Pictures/Volcano Films

Direction de la photographie : Manuel Dacosse

Montage : Nassim Gordji-Tehrani

Décors : Laïa Colet

Distribution (France) : Potemkine Films

Distribution principale

Max Brebant — Nicolas
Roxane Duran — Stella / l’infirmière
Julie-Marie Parmentier — la mère
Nissim Renard — Frank
Mathieu Goldfeld — Victor
Pablo-Noé Étienne — Lucas
Nathalie Le Gosles — le docteur