Enys Men | 'psychedelic, folk-arthouse dreamscape'

Enys Men, Mark Jenkin’s follow up to acclaimed drama Bait (2019), is a Cornish, experimental, folk-arthouse dreamscape, that would feel just as at home in an art gallery as the cinema.

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The Stone Island

Enys Men, (pronounced ‘Enys Main’ meaning stone island in Cornish) immediately transports you into the past with Jenkin’s go-to choice of filming on 16mm film stock creating a grainy image with a distinctly un-Hollywood aspect ratio. The colours are highly saturated, the image pops with beautiful imperfections, close-ups are soft and yet detailed, and the hand-held nature of this film gives it that found footage feel.

Our main protagonist, The Volunteer, played by Mary Woodvine, leads us through the stark, yet beautiful landscape of the remote Cornish island she finds herself on, and her daily routine of collecting data as she observes the growth of a small clutch of wild flowers, making cups of tea, maintaining the generator that powers her small stone cottage and reading in the bath.

The camera follows The Volunteer’s walking boots through the brush, on occasion ignoring her as she goes about her daily tasks, becoming distracted by the landscape or the details of inanimate objects. Repeat shots are used to reinforce her ritualistic behaviours, as she records her findings daily in her logbook, writing in pencil ‘No change’.

Hullo. My name is Lee

Hullo...

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This routine is repeated again, and again, and again… and then her routine breaks, as does the familiarity and order of the sounds and images we have come to expect. As the foundations begin to crumble and she runs out of tea, the world around her, her perceptions of reality, and time itself begins to fall apart.

Defining Horror

In the Q&A following the screening, Jenkin talked about the problems he faced labelling Enys Men as a horror. He didn’t want to deter potential audience members, and also realised this label meant the film had big folk horror shoes to fill when trying to please the die hard horror fans.

Jenkin’s love of horror movies is clear to see and subconsciously seeps into the screen adding another layer to the dreamscape. Nods to The Shining, an iconic episode of Creepshow (The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill), and most obviously the bright red jacket worn by The Volunteer which looks like its been borrowed from the wardrobe department of Nicolas Roeg’s Don’t Look Now.

Other folk horror tropes are evident including the island’s foreboding standing stone, the ghosts of old traditions and the enchanting credits theme Kan Me’ (May Song) by Welsh-born and Cornish-speaking musician Gwenno which would feel at home on the Wicker Man soundtrack.

The juxtaposition of sound and image throughout Enys Men works beautifully, with Jenkin’s own sound design and soundtrack creating aural ghosts of Cornwall’s past, blending the timeline of the film into a surreal and timeless soup.

‘When time stops making sense, that’s the horror.’
Mark Jenkin

A blueprint for survival

Jenkin filmed Enys Men during the secondUK lockdown over 21 days with a very small cast and crew, an inspiration for indie filmmakers everywhere! He reflects on how at the time it didn’t feel like he was making a ‘lockdown movie’, that his ideas were instead influenced by the environment. But, upon reflection, this collage of landscape, colour and light was inevitably tinted by the effects and themes of experiencing such a life-changing event. Fleeting glimpses of loss, fear, loneliness, madness and the enjoyment of simple pleasures now hold more weight for the viewer.

The book The Volunteer reads throughout the film is a Penguin paperback copy of A Blueprint For Survival by E Goldsmith.

The quote on the front reads ‘Nightmarishly convincing… After reading it nothing seems quite the same any more’. Those words feel like a metaphor for both lockdown and the film itself.

Folk-arthouse

Any film academic will be chomping at the bit to uncover the hidden meanings of Enys Men. The only linear certainty is that the film starts and then ends. So if you are after a coherent plot and character development, this film may not be for you. But, if instead, you want to be immersed in a psychedelic, folk-arthouse dreamscape, then climb aboard, and don’t forget your walking shoes.

Leaving the cinema I’m thrown straight back into our reality where it’s £7 for a glass of wine and I have to get a lift home from The Picture House in Exeter, back to Newton Abbot due to train strikes. It’s definitely 2023. Isn’t it?