Évolution (2015)

If you didn't think the ocean could get any more unnerving, check out this woozily atmospheric, surreal sci-fi horror flick.


Cinematography by: Manuel Dacosse


I’ve seen this surreal coming-of-age sci-fi horror film from French enigma Lucile Hadžihalilović multiple times, and I still don’t really know what the hell it’s about. Describing its plot makes me sound like a raving lunatic - “so there’s this island out in the middle of nowhere full of sea witches, or maybe they’re aliens, or maybe they’re land-dwelling merwomen, but anyways they’re out there secretly experimenting on young boys in order to make them give birth to god knows what” - and with the scant information we receive throughout the film, the story as a whole is indecipherable; however, as with many surrealist works, the story is tertiary in importance.


It’s the dreamlike, or in this case nightmarish reality, the affect of the imagery on our subconscious - creating visceral reactions, plucking at our brains like guitar strings - and the emotions evoked, that rule supreme. There’s rarely a set meaning in surrealist art, so whatever meaning we pull from the work ourselves - like Dumbledore extracting a wispy, ethereal memory strand from his mind - is the correct one. It’s a seemingly existential artistic concept/genre that I’ve always found endlessly fascinating because it opens up infinite avenues for interpretation. No two people will extract the same meaning; no experience will be the same as the last.


And if your eyes glazed over the last few sentences as I indulgently bathed in my own joy of surrealism, then the creepy-crawly atmosphere, Manuel Dacosse’s beautiful location photography, the bizarre imagery, and the overall unpredictability of the film make it worth checking out.


Distributed by: IFC Midnight / Scream Factory

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