ENYS MEN - Mark Reviews Movies

Enys Men, Neon

Follow on Facebook | Follow on Twitter | Become a Patron

Review by Mark Dujsik | March 30, 2023

Every day, the woman walks down and back up the same hill—toward the same flowers, returning to the same house—and goes through the same routine. There are temperatures and observations to record. A two-way radio informs her that supplies are still delayed, and this is mostly a problem, it seems, because the tea in the house is running low. Enys Men charts these patterns of activity and behavior, as well as ones of memory and emotional pain, through some simple but effective filmmaking techniques.

The bigger question, though, is whether or not the whole of the movie amounts to something more than an experiment. The atmosphere created by writer/director Mark Jenkin certainly hints at a world and history that haunt and are filled with trauma, but on a narrative level, it feels a bit too much like a puzzle in which a few key pieces are either obscured or outright missing.

Our main character is that walking, studying, and note-taking woman, known only as the Volunteer and played by Mary Woodvine. She lives on the eponymous island, located somewhere off the coast of Cornwall, and devotes her days there to a strict routine. Near the nearest coast of the island, a small grouping of flowers bloom, and the Volunteer measures the temperature of the soil, keeps track of the condition of the flowers, and jots down how very little or nothing changes each day in a journal back at the house.

This is essentially the gist of the story here, although things do eventually change for the Volunteer, the flowers, the house, and the nature of the island as time progresses or repeats or remains in some kind of unlocked state, in which the past and the present exist together for some reason. The early strength of Jekin's movie, which becomes unmoored from any tangible understanding of how and when things are happening to people whose relationships are barely communicated, is the way the filmmaker creates such mystery and unease in the repetition.

After all, we are essentially watching the same day—or, at least, the same actions played in more or less a similar way to make it feel like one unending cycle—again and again. The Voluteer arrives or is already at the flowers. She does her measurements and observations, and following that, she stops at a particular spot beneath the ruins of an old tower. In that spot is a pit, and into it, she drops, with her arm extended in what starts to have the appearance of a ritual, a rock, waiting for it to fall to the bottom and make a small, distant splash in some amount of water. Her process for this always the same, except on a couple of occasions in which any kind of change or the temptation to skip this part of her day results in some need in the Volunteer to do it exactly as she always does.

That need—the unthinking desire or the conscious effort—to repeat everything seems to drive this, but to what end is that need? Some of it has to do with a memorial, a large rock formation or statue that is broadly shaped in the figure of a person, that looms in the distance, always visible from the Volunteer's home.

Some tragedy or tragedies befell this island, if the snippet of a news report on the radio and some newspaper clippings are any indication. One of them almost certainly was the capsizing of a lifeboat that went out to save another ship, killing all of its crew, but a plaque near the pier informs us that this event happened in the 19th century. Our protagonist seems to be of the 20th century, perhaps around the '70s or '80s, so she would have no memory of that. Does the Boatman (Edward Rowe), a mysterious figure who eventually brings the Volunteer her supplies and seems to have a more intimate relationship with her in some flashbacks, have something to do with it, or is his fate just an echo of the past—a past that will inevitably be repeated in some way and at some time when lives revolve around the sea?

Attempting to dissect all of this, which also includes a teenage girl (played by Flo Crowe) who may or may not exist and a preacher (played by the lead actor's father John Woodvine in, perhaps, a clue as to the characters' relationship or as a nice gesture on Jenkin's part), is a bit tempting. Most of that temptation, though, comes not because the characters possess much inherent interest, the story arrives at some revelation that makes us rethink or re-contextualizes everything that has come before it, or the mystery the movie creates offers some deeper thoughts on the nature of time and living a haunted existence.

Any thought that this material is worth picking apart comes from how Jenkin has shot and assembled Enys Men with a clear sense of atmosphere and rhythmic intention. Everything else about the movie seems to exist in a fog of uncertainty, though, so the temptation doesn't last long.

Back to Home

Buy Related Products

Buy the Soundtrack (Digital Download)