Hal Kitchen
Sadly one of the most disappointing films of the festival, Mark Jenkin’s follow up to the magnificent Bait should’ve had everything. A folk body horror from the creators of one of the most exciting British films in recent memory is an easy sell, but unfortunately, Enys Men was a film of which I understood little and enjoyed even less. Deprived of the sharp social commentary, intelligent satire, and rich characterisation of Bait, Enys Men foregrounds the stylism of the earlier film and makes a break with linear logical narrative, unfolding in an abstracted series of repetitious dreamlike sequences. That needn’t have been fatal and certain tastes might warm to Enys Men, but it was the only screening so far where almost everyone was out of their seats the moment the credits started to roll, and not just became Women Talking was about to start next door.
Enys Men refers not to any men, but to the island on which the film takes place. In a scenario that feels like a nightmare funhouse mirror version of Geographies of Solitude, the film follows a middle-aged woman (played by Bait‘s Mary Woodvine) as she lives alone (or perhaps not) on the island documenting the growth of a singular wildflower growing on the nearby cliffs. As time goes on though she begins to develop what seems to be a symbiotic relationship with the flower, her past and present begin eliding and the tragedy of her past comes into focus.
Sadly the obscure action is so repetitive (and deliberately so, make no mistake about that) that it does become a trying watch. The film’s attempts at outright horror feel forced and out of character, and it doesn’t provide a great deal of psychological complexity to draw the viewer in. Its fire burns slowly and in the end, consumes very little without giving off much heat. The Brechtian devices that served Bait so well—filming on 16mm, post-syncing all the dialogue and foley, heavy use of close-up—are still arresting and intriguing, but once it’s got you to sit up and take notice, it doesn’t have much to say. The themes of grief and time, the way some things are transitory while others endure for centuries, are evocative, but the images presented by Enys Men don’t coalesce into a very inspiring picture. It’s too cryptic to work as a straightforward narrative and a little too pedestrian to work as effective surrealism.
I will say this for the film, the mind does do interesting things when untethered and left to roam around itself. For me, this was a film about grief and the way it never really goes away, it stays and becomes a part of us, changing us as it does so. After we’re gone, our grief will outlast us, because that absence is all we’ll be. Others might take very different things from the film, about humanity’s relationship to nature, the evolving nature of identity and community or the personal relationship to faith and religion. Films like Enys Men are designed to untether the mind and let the subconscious roam. In my book Enys Men did do that. However, my mind would have appreciated a more fertile and nutritious pasture to graze on. As far as 2022 British abstract folk horrors ending in the letters “M-E-N” go, I’ll stick to Men myself.
