The only residents of young Nicholas's seaside town are women and boys. He senses everyone is lying to him, why must he, and all the other boys, be hospitalised? And with help from a young nurse, he learns the secret of what the women do on the beach at night.
It's easy to imagine the 85-minute runtime being trimmed to 60, given the limited action and abundance of long, static takes, but then, Hadzihalilovic probably wants to give the dread time to soak in.
Hadzihalilovic's poetic bio-horror doesn't answer any questions, instead submerging us into her dreamlike, watery world as seen through her young protagonist's eyes.
A film of a strong surreal and metaphorical tone, with nurses dressed in an old fashioned way experimentating on children in an operating room that resembles a morgue. [Full review in Spanish]
Evolution never quite gives up its secrets, and it's not a coincidence that the opening shots are deep underwater, since the picture submerges the viewer in its world and keeps them there.
I'm almost positive I didn't grasp at least of half of what was going on, maybe more than that. But what is here, how it is explored, I can't get it a single second of it out of my head.
The character development and plot in "Evolution" are minimal, and its bold themes aren't fully explored, but as an exercise in creepy atmospherics, this is one of the most accomplished films of the year.
