Enys Men

The second movie in my double feature at the Broadway last night was Enys Men (which is Cornish for "Stone Island").  I am a big fan of experimental horror and I found this to be incredibly unsettling.  A Volunteer (Mary Woodvine) conducts daily observations of and logs the data for a group of white flowers on the cliff of an isolated and inhospitable island off the coast of Cornwall in 1973.  She follows the exact same monotonous routine every day and the results of her observations do not change.  She has very little contact with the outside world except for a short-wave radio and a Boatman (Edward Rowe) who periodically brings her supplies.  After the Boatman and his smashed up boat wash up on shore, however, the Volunteer begins to be haunted by the spirits of people who once inhabited the island and a strange lichen appears on both the flowers and on the Volunteer's body.  It seems as if the Volunteer is being subsumed by both memory and nature but this is my interpretation (everything is open to interpretation because what this movie does so well is put you inside the head of the main character so that, like her, you begin to question everything that you see on the screen).  The action happens in a very non-linear structure (the Volunteer is shown with a yellow rain slicker well before we see the floating body of the Boatman wearing it and she places a piece of his boat on the mantel before we see the wreck in the water) and the images are steeped in mythology and allegory, particularly the oft-repeated wide shots of circling birds, crashing waves, and a mysterious stone monolith.  The sound design, which features wind, waves, and static from the radio, emphasizes the disorientation and the use of grainy 16-millimeter film is incredibly evocative (it is almost as if the movie itself is a relic unearthed from the past).  Woodvine is absolutely riveting as a woman slowly going mad.  The narrative can be frustrating because it focuses more on atmosphere than plot and it is more unnerving than scary but I was fascinated by this movie and highly recommend seeking it out (it is playing in a very limited engagement at the Broadway).