The Witch (stylised as the
VVitch) is completely (and appropriately) bewitching.
For prospective viewers: encase yourselves in dread, wonder and
occasional puzzlement for an hour and a half – the images from this film will
not easily be forgotten.
Anticipation was rife and the cinematic community abuzz well before the
eventual theatrical release of Robert Eggers’ maiden film, and early reviews
were almost exclusively glowing.
And, remarkably, here's a rare case of warranted hype, for this
smouldering modern ‘horror’ picture cinders away at the senses, and will leave
an ineradicable mark – serving as a hugely rewarding experience for discerning
viewers.
Inspired by the profound and pervasive role witchcraft played circa 17th Century America, the film handles the subject adroitly, more than doing
justice to the hysteria and madness it engendered in society.
Debuting auteur Eggers, a fan of cinematic restraint (which is most
laudable), researched the topic heavily before entering production – and he
deserves high praise for his slavish attention to period detail here.
So, this picture is obviously the handiwork of a director with a genuine
interest in the time period, the witchcraft-induced paranoia and bedlam of the
epoch, and the associated dialect (the dialogue here is quite infectiously, and
fascinatingly, turgid).
There’s an authenticity to proceedings so often amiss in other films of
its ilk.
In fact, many or some of the lines in the film are lifted directly from
literature recovered from the time period.
Critically, debuting director Robert Eggers uses the setting he’s got to
work with supremely well.
The location itself is forbidding and seething with a kind of natural,
bespoken dread that hearkens back to the sort of innate fear of the unknown
conjured by turn of the twentieth century Gothic and weird fiction authors -
notably Algernon Blackwood (his The Willows), MR James (The Ash Tree) and Robert E Howard (Pigeons
from Hell) where setting and a
sort of rural or backwoods menace serve as a springboard for a controlled burn
of encroaching dread.
The film too, is strongly reminiscent of 1970s pastoral terror –or ‘folk
horror’ – which has become a popular label for films of this nature; notable
examples include the Vincent Price vehicle Witchfinder General
(1968), Christopher Lee starrer The Devil Rides Out
(1968) and of course, Robin
Hardy’s towering, monolithic exercise in pagan terror, The Wicker Man (1973).
Eggers’ stark flick continues that tradition – rural setting,
supernatural and/or apparently otherworldly disturbances, a township or small,
tightknit community who’ve apparently ties to the occult, an ever growing sense
of deviltry.
Whilst The Witch isn’t a full-blown revival , the elements are certainly there and the
film capitalises on the menacing ruggedness of setting better than most.
This one however, is deeply, deeply enigmatic, and with opaqueness comes
a driving desire to go back and decipher more.
Folk horror runs on a pervasive sense of rustic anxiety and dread, often
suffused with uncertainty about what’s truly afoot – and it’s the second part
which most strongly characterises The Witch.
It shuns procedure – we’re not simply watching a mystery film where the
motivations of the characters are unclear – for there isn’t heavy exposition -
the whole film is a cryptic package, and the ordeal of the tormented family at
the centre of this demoniac crisis is one felt by the viewer as we travel
unnoticed beside them.
Shot virtually entirely in low light, or so it seems, the landscape is
painted in such a truly saturnine way that the look of the environment itself
is as responsible for inducing fear as the elusive source of the nefarious
goings-on - which gradually begin to manifest on the homestead of the family
on-screen.
Atmosphere and mood is everything, and evidently, Eggers is acutely
aware of this fact.
There needn’t be much immediately happening, for there to be a lot going
on.
On the outskirts, somewhere in the peripheries, on the edges of the
psyche, fear and trepidation can linger – here’s a picture that coaxes those
bugaboos out from the shadows via a minimalist approach to filmmaking -
prolonged silences, protracted scenes that linger on the environment, images
that suggest...than dissipate into the night.
The premise is straightforward, and extensive elaboration is
unnecessary.
Impeached, uprooted from their plantation, and forced to erect a farm on
the threshold of the woods due to a somewhat ambiguous transgression, a family
in the 1600s is forced to start their life anew.
Exiled, the cast-off clan encamp by a vast and darkened thicket of doomy
trees.
The family dynamic is founded on dysfunction and infighting well before
the eerie happenings arrive.
Ana Taylor-Joy as repressed and multilayered Thomasin (the eldest
daughter) has perhaps the most interesting part.
The gloomy brood is comprised of Thomasin, son Caleb, and twins Jonas
and Mercy – all of whom find themselves oppressed by the brooding gloom of
their surrounds.
Caleb is an intrepid type who follows his father everywhere – that is
until tragedy befalls the domesticity.
The twins and the family goat Black Philip are unnervingly inseparable –
a beast that (ostensibly) speaks to them.
Something is not right – corruption!
The cast is rounded out by Ralph Ineson and Kate Dickie as a pair of
overprotective and increasingly unstable parents and the performances are
uniformly excellent.
Taylor-Joy is a revelation as Thomasin –angst-ridden and plagued by a
desire to extricate herself from her overbearing parents, she grapples with
guilt and shame – torturing herself to the brink of insanity as she questions
her role in bringing such a predicament to her family.
Thomasin is embroiled in an unenviable conflict – here is a young woman
who only wants to unshackle herself from the expectations and fixed beliefs of
her kin and live a life of her choosing – but her waywardness and
insuppressible desire for emancipation land her in unspeakable trouble.
Seasoned thespian Ralph Ineson is well cast as austere patriarch
William, his haunted visage and cavernous voice lends gravitas to the
role.
The sparse farmstead in 16th century New England (though shot in Canada) is, to reiterate, afforded a
lo-fi, perennially greyish look, and has a sort of entrancing quality that only
renders the pivotal moments later on more forceful.
Crops fail and the corn is inedible, an infant is taken by something
which absconds into the woods, and youngest son Caleb is lost in the forest
following a hunting session only to return delirious, unclothed, in unspeakable
agony, and clearly the recent subject of some sort of bedevilment.
To reveal too much would be a criminal case of unnecessary divulgence.
What can be said is that events (very) gradually unfurl like a ball of
yarn being rolled about by an indolent cat – and it’s disquieting.
You’ll find yourself perpetually questioning, at times aloud even...as
fingers are pointed, allegations levelled, in a frenzied bid to determine whom
is culpable for the increasingly satanic practises occurring around them.
Discomfort grows as distrust balloons out of control.
Whilst for the most part, a very implicit
film, it must be said The Witch has more than a few shocking
moments.
A crazed interloper lurking in the corner of a barn apparently latched
to a goat is but one of many an image that’ll induce a wince or a shriek or
both.
Eventually, everything within sight appears a threat or capable of
violence, be it the not-so-benign farm animals wandering about, the growingly
agitated William, or the abode itself
Critically, Eggers’ work is much more than mere visceral mood piece with
a sole purpose to paralyse– the Witch is a multilayered enigma that serves as a fascinating epochal
deconstruction – a meditation on the crushing nature of societal mores and
misguided belief systems, faith and faithlessness – familial discord and
disharmony.
For much of the duration, the film is an especial exercise in cinematic
subtlety - a forceful testament to the power of suggestion.
Marc Korven’s starkly beautiful and magnificently haunting score is
never manipulative or in-your-face, it arrives and departs periodically like
the tide – contributing effectively to the film’s overall mood and atmosphere.
Eggers, clearly a future force to be reckoned with, has endowed
audiences with a creepy picture that is very hesitant to reveal much.
So, eschewing cliché, The Witch manages to unsettle in the most frightening way, picking
away at the nerves like a raven lingering about carrion.
This masterstroke will etch itself a permanent place in your mind and
serve as a substantial meal for the imagination.
Expect it to gnaw at the insides for a while after the screen blackens.
9.0
