ellisjwells

England, 1555. A young mute woman (Hannah Douglas) struggles to survive in her outcast clan, due to the lascivious advances of their leader ("Peaky Blinders"'s Emmett J. Scanlan). Goodness this is not a comfortable watch, and I should mention there are very triggering scenes of sexual assault (so be warned). The story gives me "Breaking the Waves" (1996) meets "the Piano" (1993); with a captivating lead performance of the mute Douglas; helpless in the male dominated clan. She is brilliant; and the segmentation of the story is very cool. And there is lot to take away from the commentary of the film, the cleverness of a literally 'silenced woman' of the past in a post #MeToo world is very creative; though Scanlan's central antagonist needed fleshing out. Why is he their leader? What skills put him in-charge? At points his embodiment of toxic masculinity is very one-note and lacking subtlety. This is a low budget feature film, probably with very limited resources; so when I say the cinematography is GORGEOUS in parts, I'm taking Hollywood level beautiful. Whoever Stewart MacGregor is, my word, he's talented... BOOK HIM NOW!!! For an independent film I was utterly impressed, and forgive a lot of understandable limitations on low budget features (a few of the minor roles were... just not believable). Though independent or not I was disappointed the film triggered my CUNF rule (completely unnecessary nude female). It was pointless and made little sense beyond objectification. A very, very commendable and thought provoking drama. Just quite grim and traumatising in parts.