Saint Maud

It's like Rosie Glass saw a number of Paul Schrader "I'm going to narrate my anguish and misery and self-influcted contradictory impulses while also making myself suffer in a physical way" films and said "but... I can go a little further - and with a woman!" This isnt at all a bad thing and Glass's vision is striking and with psychologically rich and even dangerous compositions as we're plopped into Maud's unruly consciousness. I'm sure there are and will be interpretations about whether she is simply a total nutter who is deteriorating in her mind, or if this battle between someone who has been anointed by God and is torturing herself so she can be ready to face our against THE DEVIL or what have you.

By the end, I didn't think the film necessarily reconciled the two poisitons all that strongly, as in everything is so in her head that the conclusion makes it pretty clear (at least to me) that she lost her grip on reality through her Faith with a capital F. Or I should put it that the film is a dark and harrowing journey into someone's inner being ripped apart piece by piece, but by the end if it means to be ambiguous it's been a little too basic to earn it. All the same, Glass and Clark makes this remarkable through their total commitment to making this woman's descent so deeply felt and pained, using the camera as this point of pain at times where what Maud is seeing in a room (like the big cockroach) is aiding in this warped sense of things.

This is all to say that the film this would very well to be paired with, though not exactly the same genre, is really Benedetta, another story of someone so totally in the thrall of the Lord to where it turns the world upside down, but where that film benefitted from the larger place her and other women had in society and the reactions to what happened with that title character, Saint Maud is about making the internal the external, and that can only be sustained for so long. But I have to stress that if you're in the mood for this sort of heart-wrenching spiritual-existential horror, Clark and in particular Jennifer Ehle in a key supporting role create an atmosphere that is perfectly dreadful.

Religion, ain't it something else?

"Saint Maud" follows the titular Maud, a young hospice nurse in a small, dreary English seaside village who takes a job caring for Amanda, a cancer-stricken, middle-aged American dancer and bon vivant living in a secluded mansion on the hillside. Maud, a recent Catholic convert prone to her own bizarre visions, comes to believe that caring for the dying Amanda is her mission and purpose--a soul to save. But at what price?

This insular and occasionally shocking feature debut by director Rose Glass is, though marketed as a horror film, really more a psychological examination of abject loneliness and descent into madness. In some ways, it feels like it could have been written first as a novel, and that's part of what makes the film unique. The film's largest achievement is that it successfully operates on a number of levels, functioning as a meditation on loneliness, a portrait of a nervous breakdown, a hagiographic tragedy, as well as (possibly) a demonic possession story.

Ultimately, at its base level, "Saint Maud" is a character study reflected between the two dichotomous central characters: Maud, the lonely, psychologically-fragile nurse obsessed with matters of the spirit; and Amanda, a woman who has lived for the pleasures of the flesh (the fact that she was a dancer, a profession strongly appertained with the physical body, is no symbolic coincidence). Their philosophical clashing of perspectives ultimately shatters Maud, though she manages to rebuild her absolution in a terrifying way. Both characters are delicately portrayed by Morfydd Clark and Jennifer Ehle, respectively, and the film would not work without the strength they bring to each.

All in all, this film is a dour portrait of both mental decline and spiritual ecstasy, depending on how one wants to look at it. Glass puts forth her own take in the film's final frame, which almost veers too far into hokey territory, but in the end, "Saint Maud" manages to be a potent (and depressing) examination of one person's tragic search for purpose. 8/10.

There are essentially two ways to read 'Saint Maud (2019)', though its final half-second pretty much tells you exactly which reading is preferred - intended, even - by its writer/director, and it constantly keeps you flittering back and forth between these readings until its final few frames (literally). A film focusing on a deeply religious character is always going to be controversial, even if it doesn't depict her doing fanatical and dangerous things, but I don't think that the picture is condemning religion itself. In fact, I don't think it's 'about' religion at all. Instead, it's about loneliness. Maud is a deeply flawed protagonist, spiralling further and further into her own personal delusions as she exhibits increasingly harmful behaviour. However, it's typically easy to empathise with her, without condoning her actions. The movie starts off more or less as a straight drama, seeing our lead take on a new position as an at-home nurse for an ex-dancer with late-stage leukaemia. There are levels of enigmatic dread running through this segment of the film, mainly thanks to the director's willingness to slow things down and gnaw away at the audience, but things don't really slip into proper horror territory until around halfway through. Even then, the horror is mostly subtle. There are some elements of wince-inducing body-horror but most of the scary stuff is psychological. It becomes increasingly clear just how entrenched we are within Maud's perspective, as we begin to get glimpses of the way she sees the world, and it's never clear what's actually 'real'. This keeps you on your toes until the thing reaches its somewhat surprising yet simultaneously inevitable conclusion. For the most part, the affair walks the line between supernatural and psychological with poise. There are only a couple of moments in which it wobbles, with one sequence in particular feeling as though it crosses that line a little, but they aren't all that bothersome once you've cemented your final reading of the narrative (which, again, will either be confirmed or entirely upended by the last half-second). It's a really interesting, engaging and effective experience overall. It's also achingly well-made, with some phenomenal cinematography and brilliantly low-key performances. It's distinct, it's disturbing and it sticks with you. 8/10.

....but almost worth the wait. But the one thing this isn't is a horror film, its a psychological thriller at best. Well worth a watch but I'd hardly call it a masterpiece.

Because it's more than that. It's also a study of loneliness (of both main characters) and obsession. It does have its shock moments, not least when in becomes clear that Maud is not the clear-cut character you thought she was.

As I left the cinema, I quoted Dave Allen to myself: "I'm an atheist, thank God."