The ghost box goes west… Enys Men (2022), On nationwide release 13th January 2023

This is a film unlike any you’ve seen and yet, something so familiar as well, from the grains on the colour film to the period setting, 1973, and Mark Jenkin’s haunting electronic score, this is perhaps the apex of the scene that haunts itself and has done since the likes of Ghost Box started released the sound of future passed a decade ago. On that most insubstantial of channels, BBC Radio 6, Stuart Maconie recently devoted an entire programme to the sounds of principles of “Hauntology” featuring contributions from the record labels, musicians and writers who contribute to this loose alliance of textures and moods.

As someone who grew up in the seventies, I can understand the nostalgic pull of revisiting the then futuristic but artists such as Warrington Runcorn New Town Development Plan (aka Gordon Chapman Fox), are much younger than me and are attracted to the style and the optimism of a time when we were on an irresistible path of, sometimes mis-judged, progress. Mark Jenkin is of this younger generation and here he not only provides his own electronic score, much in the style of  Warrington/Gordon’s stablemates on Castles in Space or Ghost Box artists, another label finding new grooves in the electronica trailblazed by Delia Derbyshire/BBC Radiophonic Workshop, Terry Riley and Stockhausen, then Morton Subotnick, the "Berlin School" of early Tangerine Dream and Kraftwerk, as well as Brits like Brian Eno and Francis Monkman. 

The detail is in the detail

This is but the subtext for his vision which recreates the feel of early seventies Folk Horror and other experimentations. The BFI have just released a set of Ghost Stories for Christmas including MR James’ enduringly creepy, Whistle and I'll Come to You (1968) directed by Jonathan Miller and featuring a magnificently terrified turn from Michael Hordern. There’s something of the same existential dread in Enys Men and, as with Whistle, the ending wrongfoots the viewer in quite startling ways. But, every foot of Jenkin’s film is full of steps to this moment, each one sampling not just the sound but also the diverse source imagery of public information films, children’s horror serials such as The Owl Service, Children of the Stones, as well as the more psychological folk horrors, The Blood on Satan’s Claw (1971), Symptoms (1974), even later fare such as The Anchoress (1993).

You can have fun guessing inspirations and, realising exactly what we’re like, the BFI has kindly arranged a season, The Cinematic DNA of Enys Men, programmed by Mark Jenkin, will run at BFI Southbank and on BFI Player throughout January 2023. Including features, documentaries, TV programmes and shorts, the season will give context to Enys Men and the inspirations behind it, also giving audiences the opportunity to enjoy some rich and rarely seen content.

As with his previous film, Bait, Jenkin on grainy 16mm film stock and with his trademark post-synched sound, although this time he uses colour which not only provides more period feel but also illuminates numerous plot points.

The story is centred on a wildlife volunteer, played superbly by Mary Woodvine (also in Bait) whose job it is to monitor a rare flower on an uninhabited island off the coast of Cornwall. Through her painstaking daily routines Jenkin slowly detaches the narrative from the linear and the viewer from their expectation of standard progression. On her daily trips to the cliff-face, near an abandoned tin mine (West Penwith), she checks the soil temperature, the growth of the plant and as she walks past the old mine, drops a stone down a shaft to hear is splosh in the deep dark waters. Back in her cottage she writes down the date and notes anything unusual: everyday is just the same “no change”.

Every day she starts the oil power generator outside cottage to provide light and power, closing the gate before switching on the over to make tea and update her minimalistic log, there’s a two-way radio that crackles occasionally into life and a medium wave transistor set that plays whatever signal can reach this lonely place. Our minds may begin to wonder as the Volunteer’s begins to wander and gradually, we’re presented with faces and events that may be real, imagined past or present.

Jenkins’ camera is relentless in its focus on minutia, odd-shaped rocks, an old, rusted rail from the mine, birds and plants, the volunteer’s walking boots on the crumbling steps… it’s hypnotic and riveting as any or all may be providing clues. There’s a pace that reminds you of Peter Greenaway (who made a few public information films in his time) as well as Derek Jarman certainly around the time of The Garden. This film will not be providing its audience with any easy answers and I can’t wait to watch it again to see what else I pick up.

People start to pop up, a young woman (Flo Crowe) who may be the Volunteer’s daughter or someone else entirely. She’s with her or is she. A visiting Boatman (Edward Rowe, also in Bait) asks her how it is being so alone and she replies that she isn’t, a reference by that point not just to the girl but to an old man/priest (the legend that is John Woodvine!), a collection of lifeboatmen, drowned in 1897, a group of women in traditional dress and dirt encrusted miners. All may be or may be not…

Then the landscape itself starts to intrude on the Volunteer’s thoughts and her physicality… is her solitude getting to her or is there something entirely more metaphysical at work. Does she burn her hands on the oven, how widely does the lichen grow, are events even happening in the right order?

Mary Woodvine is extraordinary and is in almost every scene of the film, engaging and yet lost in her character’s own world, as she, almost entirely wordlessly, guides us through the story. There are innumerable close-ups and, once again you have to think of silent film and technique when assessing Jenkin’s work. This is bold and absolutely to be seen in cinema where you can give it your full attention and be completely lost in the details the director and cast provide.

 

Enys Men, opens on 13 January 2023 at BFI Southbank and in cinemas UK-wide and there’s a preview/director Q&A tour with Mark Jenkin in Cornwall and other key cities from 2 January 2023. Mary Woodvine at some of the dates.

The Cinematic DNA of Enys Men on BFI Southbank/BFI Player from 1-31 January 2023.

Further details are on the BFI website, one of the films of the year and it’s yours to watch in January!