Enys Men

Enys Men has beautiful shots, great zooms, interesting atmosphere, and an unsettling tone. But what do you get when you have beautiful shots, great zooms, and interesting atmosphere without a full story? You have great pictures. You wanna make great pictures? Become a photographer. These great filmmaking attributes do not add up to anything without a story. And yes, I know there's a ghost story here....but barely. And it's 100% based on sumbol and metaphor. Never go full metaphor. Why am I supposed to care? I love experimental films. Persona is one of the greatest movies ever made, but there's so many layers and depth to the characters and ideas that we are exploring on top of the abstract filmmaking. Mark Jenkin shows here that he can direct. But he also shows he doesn't know how to write. If he can figure that out, he could make something worth while.

On an island there's a woman you will find, she has strange habits and she's losing most her mind, strange flowers keep her busy, cascading stones may make you dizzy, into a void that one assumes, was sometimes mined. She has a scar across her midriff from a cut, it went quite deep and nearly opened up her gut, along the mark she's growing lichen, perhaps she's rather over ripened, on the horizon, a strange rock protrudes and juts. On occasion she receives a man in boat, we find out later that he's buoyant and can float, although he clearly cannot swim, or make the most of his four limbs, as he's puffed up showing signs of a great bloat.

Imaginative stuff, but a little too abstract.

This is an almost entirely single-handed, dialogue free, story of a woman who is taking (very basic) climate and wildlife data on an otherwise uninhabited island off the Cornish Coast. Clearly this has been a mining island in days gone by, with ruins and mine-workings strewn around the place and those exude a sort of creepiness that is only augmented by the constant wind and the sound of the waves crashing against the rocks. Her days are routine, to say the least, but gradually we start to realise that the island has been touched by tragedy - as has the woman (Mary Woodvine) herself. Auteur Mark Jenkin doesn't rush with this, but rather takes his time to slowly but surely allow us to put together some of the pieces of just what drew this woman to this isolated and lonely spot. It's that repetitive pacelessness that I struggled with. We see the same shots over and over again, the same procedures and scenarios and though there is a very incremental development of the plot, the whole thing just doesn't really move. It has the hallmarks of an original "Poldark" episode married with the "Dr. Who - Stones of Blood" series from 1978. To be fair, it has a very authentic 1973 feel to it, and the audio mixing coupled with some sparingly used visual effects do help create a very slight air of mystery and tragedy, but I found it all just a bit lacking. Worth a watch though, but I'm not sure I will watch it again.

Set in the spring of 1973, "Enys Men" follows a wildlife researcher documenting the growth of flowers on an isolated island off the coast of Cornwall, whose daily repetitive rituals slowly morph into a psychological (and possibly supernatural) nightmare.

There's really no way around it--this is certainly not a film where much "happens", and it is bound to frustrate viewers expecting a substantial payoff. You will not get it. However, there's also no way around arguing that "Enys Men" is utterly gorgeous from beginning to end. Shot on aged film stock, it is littered with scratches, lens flares, and enough textural grit to appease any self-respecting grindhouse aficionado. The island setting, riddled with stone ruins of an old settlement, is haunting and beautiful. Stylistically, it all comes together as a visual and thematic mashup of films such as "The Shining", Robert Altman's "Images", "Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles", and even "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre".

While some reviewers have asserted that the filmmakers have approached the material in a literary manner, the real narrative locus here is wholly visual, and the director presents a repetitious scattershot of images that make suggestions but demand the audience imagine the connective tissue themselves. There is less than a paragraph of dialogue throughout it, and the subtle visual nods to the island's historical background emerge perhaps more strongly than the character herself, rendering the film an immersive interpretive exercise for the audience that is engrossing but certainly not thrilling.

"Enys Men" unfurls itself slowly, beginning as a quiet meditation on a researcher's lonesome study of nature, before slowly descending into a nightmare world where the natural landscape, figments of the researcher's imagination and/or individuals from her past (including a young woman who obliquely appears alongside her, possibly a younger version of herself), and spectral figures connected to the island's history (miners, doomed mariners, and a priest) all collide into a perverse tapestry. Even milkmaids on a tin canister of dried milk in the kitchen come to life here.

While there is perhaps no tangible throughline in terms of narrative, I think the film succeeds as a twisted portrait of human isolation. As the researcher's rations and resources dwindle, nature and history begin to take over. Lichens grow on both the flowers she studies as well as on her body itself--the island's landscape, its ancient stone monolith, and the ghosts of its past, tighten their grip both mentally and physically. There's little relief and even less explanation, but an unshakeable ominous tone pervades from start to finish. It is certainly not a film that aims to traditionally entertain, but it is one to get lost in--or consumed by. 8/10.

Seems most people either love it or dislike/hate it... I liked it but probably won't watch it again anytime soon. I don't have a clue about the regional legends, folktales or cultural markers the movie is said to reference.

What I do have is a lot of patience and quite a bit of imagination. It also helped that it was screened at a folk horror event so I had some context for it. Thus the film did keep my interest as I tried to piece together WTH was going on, and creating a story within my head as the movie went on. The atmosphere is eerie and the movie overall is experimentally interesting so I think the director is on to something, I'd just hope his next effort would be something where I don't have to create most of the story for myself.

Go see if you're ok with experimental, slow-paced stuff that doesn't offer you much answers.

Avoid if you want your horror with action and explanations, and have a low threshold for experimental stuff.