Enys Men

An infuriatingly dull and frustrating watch which seems to hint at lots of interesting ideas that don't develop in any way. I loved bait and while this uses a similar aesthetic it lacks anything approaching a story, character development or depth. It's also mind numbingly repetitive.

I see other reviews saying that people might not "get" what this film is really about or saying. If that's the case then gods sake please enlighten us on what there is to understand rather than smugly pontificating. I feel like in reality it's not a lot. And if it requires some prior understanding of 'Cornish culture' to understand what's going on then sorry, I don't realise I had to revise before I watched it.

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.

This is mostly a response to these depressing reviews. Have you never watched a moody film before?

You should already know from Bait that Jenkin is an experimental filmmaker. It's an unconventional film which is about experiencing a mood and atmosphere. The film won't spoon feed you the same storytelling tropes you've already seen a million times before, so if that makes a film "bad" to you then stay away. Don't try to understand it, just watch it.

I much preferred this to Bait. I liked the sound design, the blurring of nightmare and reality and the body horror elements.

What's he got against lichen, though?

A woman lives in isolation on a small island off the coast of Cornwall studying its nature. She lives in a small cottage powered by the generator she must run and every day follows the same seemingly tedious routine of study, dropping a stone down an old tin mine shaft, drinking tea and going to bed reading a book on survival by candlelight. One day she discovers a new flower and starts to see visions of people from the island's past, many who have apparently been killed, she also appears to grow the same lichen on her body that has started growing on the flower.

It is fair to say per general criticism that this is a film rich in atmosphere and very little else. Nothing much happens and quite what does is heavily open to one's own interpretation. It is though unnerving, somewhat spooky and indeed rich in atmosphere as it plays heavily with temporal rules. I kinda 'enjoyed' this eerie film which has a mood which feels like a cross between The Wicker Man and an M. R. James ghost story but probably needed a tad more in the way of explanation / closure if I'm honest.

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.