1000 Tiny Birds

Enys Men (2022)

2023-01-19

Oh no. I had high hopes for Enys Men, but I found this to be severely underwhelming, and honestly disappointing from Mark Jenkin. The first half is soporific, and the way of telling the story - if there really is one, or one worth telling - doesn’t serve the narrative in any discernible sense. It seems overly content to provide ambiguous imagery, disconnected from what appears to actually be happening to its characters. This is not a matter of being too thick to get what it’s doing. I know what it’s doing. I can parse it. I just don’t feel convinced that I should care to. David Lynch can do this, because he’s David Lynch and even if it doesn’t make sense once externalised on screen, there’s an implicit confidence that it does in his head. I don’t think Jenkin really knows what this is. The cinematography is beautiful (somewhat reminiscent of both Ben Wheatley’s earlier work and Ben Rivers’ short film Look Well Below) and the sound design is interesting, but again, to what end? It’s affectation for affectation’s sake. A real shame after Bait, a film which told a worthwhile story in its own way, and showed genuine promise. Here’s hoping Jenkin’s next film gets back on track.