The vague adjectives usually deployed to articulate what’s by nature out of verbal reach can hardly pin Enys Men down. So yeah, it sure is unsettling, cryptic, and evocative—but is far more, and it is in that space between the striving for words and the stunning images where its exhilarating essence lies. Amongst the films released in recent years, I have rarely come across one that feels so rough and refined at the same time, or a director that combines more literally the words artist and film-maker. A film that instills the inexplicable urge to be seen more than once simply defines what cinema should be—what art is, in fact. Enys Men has the intensity of a non-destructive form of addiction. At my second iteration it gave me the impression of having been let, or perhaps dragged, a little further into its depths. To use the imagery of the film, it almost felt like looking into a well, and as the eyes adapted to its darkness starting to discern something in it—but again, what. I am pretty sure to have not fallen asleep in those couple of moments when I realised to have briefly transcended to a strange state of clarity. Everything in the film made suddenly perfect sense—only to eventually come back to pristine bewilderment, thinking how can something be so physical and yet so fleeting. The ritualised life of ‘the volunteer’ does carry an element of mantra for both her, a character tormented by anguishing memories, and the viewers. Enys Men is that very mystery, the one we chase in the unconscious hope to never grasp it.
The sheer beauty of Mark Jenkin’s photography is per se mesmerising—the grainy 16 mm stock, the near Technicolor vibrancy of reds and yellows on the gloomy tints of the rugged coast, the way light is captured or how in its absence blacks pierce the screen. But where the power of the film really takes its form, and so Mark Jenkin’s unique language, is the edit suite. Like in Bait, I can only imagine how misleadingly dull the script might have seemed to someone who had no clue about how it was going to be made. Tight angles on day-to-day actions intersect lyrical wides, awkwardly extreme closeups, or inserts on gorgeous vintage props, botanical macros, ghostly creatures, and a slug. Jenkin goes to the core of what visual storytelling is with a daring sense of irony, finding characters and themes in the process of cutting, stitching, juxtaposing. Something I only acknowledged at the second round, is how cohesive and idiosyncratic the use of sound is too—how gritty noises and dreamy folk tunes speak to each other, contributing to shape the aesthetics and the sensorial experience.
In regards to the influences, Mark Jenkin complied a genetic map of the film for a program at the BFI. Besides a juicy list that ranges from Chantal Akerman to Peter Strickland, one more reference surfaced in a Q&A. In conversation with Mark Kermode, prompted by a particularly attentive cinephile in the audience, he jokingly admitted to have ripped off the idea for the opening shot from Robert Bresson’s L’Argent. With that in mind, later in the film, I noticed at least another shot perhaps taken straight from it—an insert on the water washing blood from off-screen hands into a sink. ‘Homages,’ corrected him Kermode and Mary Woodvine in unison with a laugh. But not quite so, if I may. They are actually thefts, which reminding the famous quote attributed to Picasso, ultimately is what good artists do—take things, make their own, make them special.
Bait is the gift cinema lovers covet, the surprise I myself was after when I went to see it even though all I knew was that on the poster towered a big beardy face like those I like. The kind of men who survive because of their rocky hands, wellies on their feet to keep steady on slippery surfaces.
Martin fishes for lobsters with a boat that no longer exists in a place where times are threatening the identity of a generation, the legacy of the previous. It’s on today’s raped Cornwall, snatched from its inhabitants and sold to holidaymakers, that Mark Jenkin—a Cornish himself, and very vocal on the matter of gentrification—solo writes, directs, photographs, develops, and virtuously edits. Behind the nostalgic tingling of the 16 mm grain of a Bolex camera, he captures with a tragicomic sense of irony some rather perfect performances, conveying personal and collective frustrations, and ultimately giving shape to a truly unique piece of work.
