Enys Men (2023)

Mark Jenkin returns with his follow up to his debut masterpiece Bait (2019) with this eerie folk chiller (if you can pigeon hole it as such) that is set entirely on an uninhabited island off the Cornish coast. Mary Woodvine plays a volunteer whose daily observations of a rare flower on the island surrounded by loneliness begin to take its toll as she begins to experience visions (or are they?) all seemingly brought on by the looming presence of a monolith on the top of the hill that overlooks the house she’s staying in. Jenkin’s influences are numerous, he cites the Japanese chiller Onibaba (1964) and there’s an obvious nod to The Wicker Man (1973) around halfway through, as well as reminding this viewer of Lynch’s Lost Highway (1997) as well as Inland Empire (2006). To say that you should inhale Enys Men and simply experience it rather than try to unpack is an opinion that will differ from person to person, and it’s certainly not a given that if you enjoyed Bait you’ll definitely get something out of this; indeed, the friend I saw this with described Enys Men as “like one paragraph of screenplay beefed out by every edit and cut you can think of”, and this a quote from an individual who named Bait in his top five films of all time.

Enys Men is a triumphant follow up for Jenkin (subjective, of course) but it doesn’t get close to the heights of Bait. Keeping the same editing style, overdubbing of dialogue and shooting once more in 16mm undoubtedly adds to the feel of Enys Men, and the repetitive nature of the plot cements the island itself as a key character in the narrative, weaving in between dream and reality. Cornish culture is key to Jenkin’s film making so far (Enys Men is Cornish for ‘stone island’) and if Bait was about the threat to Cornish life from human intervention, Enys Men is the reverse of this; human form being haunted by Cornish soil. 7.8/10