Another avant-garde thriller from writer-director Mark Jenkin (Bait), Enys Men follows a researcher (Mary Woodvine) on the uninhabited island of the title. There to monitor a delicate flower that’s perched on a jagged, windswept outcropping, the researcher’s days follow a strict, lonely regimen: visit the flower and take measurements; drop a stone down an abandoned mine shaft nearby; pass a strange rock shaped like a shrouded figure; record observations in a journal over a cup of tea; and read A Blueprint for Survival by candlelight before turning in for the night. As with Bait, Jenkin unfolds this narrative, such as it is, via sudden insert shots, a surreal editing scheme, and a disregard for how we normally experience time and space. As strange things begin happening—lights flickering at the bottom of that shaft; children’s voices singing in the night; the figure of a teen girl making ghostly appearances—they occur not in a linear fashion, but more like pieces from a collage that’s been blown and scattered by the island’s wind. Enys Men distinguishes itself from Bait by being in color—the researcher wears a red slicker that has to be a nod to the recurring jacket in Don’t Look Now—and also by leaning more explicitly toward horror. Indeed, Jenkin’s technique seems best suited toward psychological horror, so that our disjointed viewing experience mirrors what might be occurring inside the researcher’s head. Perhaps she’s processing a tragedy from her past and mingling it with the island’s treacherous history, ultimately resulting in an unsettling, unsettled existence. I’m sure there’s a definitive explanation, but Enys Men strikes me as a puzzle that’s more enthralled with its individual pieces than any picture they might complete.
(5/25/2023)
