Enys Men (2022)

My good friends over at ED Distribution are set to release in theaters this wonderful film directed by Mark Jenkin. They were kind enough to send me a preview link and I watched it this morning, absolutely mesmerized from start to finish. I'll definitely go see it in an actual cinema once it's out, if only to pick up more clues and get lost once again in this labyrinthine mental island.

Here's an English translation of my Letterboxd review: "Enys Men offers a unique sensory experience, situated at the outskirts of hauntology, this protean non-genre obsessed with the notion of a present constantly shaped by the ghosts of the past. Far from the clichés of traditional fantasy, here is finally the great intimate feminine horror film that Men by Alex Garland and In the Earth by Ben Wheatley could have been, had they both not chosen the path of grand guignol. In a stripped-down, precise, calculated, and naturalistic cinematic style, Mark Jenkin evokes not only the essence of Folk Horror but also the spirit of Bergman's Hour of the Wolf. His heroine, captive in a House on the Borderland worthy of Hodgson's spatio-temporal nightmares, traverses the epochs and sediments that (de)compose reality; on the other side of the mirror, the secrets of the labyrinthine world she inhabits are revealed to us. Some may get lost in it, while others will see a fascinating representation of the nightmares of immanence. A brilliantly inhabited film, to be seen captive in the theater, to drown in the hypnotic dance of the 16mm grain chosen by its director."

And to wrap this post up, I'll direct you to yet another great Guardian article about this wonderful, wonderful movie and the wicked ways of its one-of-a-kind director.

"Enys Men", French theatrical release April 10, 2024.