This film is told as a series of disruptions to the rolling motion of this routine, from memories of other people (she is, on the surface at least, the only one on the island), reveries of its past as a strict religious community or a mine, to outgrowths of lichen on the flowers and then on her skin. Increasingly, her isolation is having a fundamental impact on her consciousness. She directly addresses the younger woman who appears in the house now and then but a later scene suggests that it is her younger self. At the centre of this strangeness stands a tall rock which might as easily be phallic as humanoid. Is it exercising its powers or are the powers those of an insular seclusion she projects to warm her days into definition, however nightmarish that is?
This film has been described as a folk horror and, given the protean boundaries of that sub-genre, I'll go along with it. However, I'm more reminded of a scene from The Mind Benders (1963) where a man, isolated by weather for a long time is interviewed and tells them he wasn't lonely as he had a companion. They ask him where the man went and he says, "it wasn't a man, it was an angel". I saw that on tv when I was about ten and it drilled into me and found my horror receptor. The routine day and the idea of something rupturing the routine with no sense of the world's assistance or care also reminded me strongly of life in the stricter of the lockdowns: grinding days, simple pleasures, same again.
Mary Woodvine as the woman (there are no named characters in this film) gives us all we need to understand the basics of this often abstract film. The lines of dialogue might account for about five of the ninety-one minutes of screen time; she must work with her face and physique. We get to know that she does like where she has landed, the plain task and its setting until the setting starts to include her body and then mind. If that surname rings a bell then you get a point. She is the daughter of the great John Woodvine (whose intense intelligence constructed his Inspector Kingdom in the great '70s UK procedural how New Scotland Yard) who, himself, appears as the psalms and sawdust preacher, bellowing homilies and singing hymns.
Finally of note is Mark Jenkin, writer, director and auteur of this film. His recent feature Bait was a loud and proud home made tale of the troubles of a village fisherman in stark black and white which he processed himself and added post synch dialogue. Because of this the uncorrected glitches and stains on the vision and audio became part of the cottage-built feel of the film. This time it's in such rich colour that it's almost saturated. The audio is clean and clear except where it is presented as intrusive distortion like the radio signal or the clipped synthesis of the electronic score. As with the previously reviewed Lola, there is no attempt at camping any of this up as a kind of Guy Maddin cover version; the aesthetic bears more of the look and feel of '70s and '80s BBC outings like Ghost Story for Christmas or The Appointment. That informs the deliberately disjointed progress, as well (though the intensity of it is more Jenkin's own touch).
I felt restlessness in the audience at the screening (Forum, final night of MIFF) which I took to be disappointment. This might have been at Jenkin for making something a lot less friendly than Bait or those who might have been attracted by the term folk horror inserted into the program notes as a recently faddish hook. I was happy to struggle with its frenetic motion. Apart from anything else, it did give me the building blocks of a story I could use for my own construction. And, really, if Ben Wheatly can get away with throwing whole third acts into psychedelic slideshows (twice!) I think we can give Jenkin a go. At least he plays fair.
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