Enys Men

Product Information

FIRST PRESSING ONLY** Fully illustrated booklet featuring new writing on the film by William Fowler and Jason Wood among others Kermode, Mark (15 January 2023). "Enys Men review – Mark Jenkin's Cornish psychodrama will sweep you away". The Guardian . Retrieved 15 January 2023. For sound effects, Jenkin used a synthesizer, wired up to a tape loop, which created echoes and sound distortions. He stood on a piece of fake wooden flooring to record footsteps. a b "Enys Men: Film poster a Cornish language breakthrough". BBC News. 6 December 2022 . Retrieved 15 January 2023.

Haunters of the Deep (1984, 61 mins): a Children’s Film Foundation adventure that shares many West Cornwall locations with Enys Men, and made quite an impression on Mark Jenkin As we get older, we start to connect the landscape with the people who lived in it,” she says. “Give me a 2,000-year-old pot that they found down the road now and I’m fascinated. As a child, I didn’t care. I suppose we’re seeing ourselves where we used to be years ago, and where we are now, realising that we’re all going to become history, too.” Russell, Calum (11 January 2023). " 'Enys Men' Review: Mark Jenkin's meditative homegrown experience". Far Out . Retrieved 15 January 2023.

Set in 1973, the horror story unfolds on an uninhabited island off the Cornish coast. A wildlife volunteer’s daily observations of a rare flower take a dark turn into the strange and metaphysical, forcing both her and viewers to question what is real and what is nightmare. Is the landscape not only alive but sentient? Kingsley Marshall, head of Film & Television at Falmouth, who worked as an executive producer of the film, describes the impact for students: “The Sound/Image Cinema Lab embeds real experiences for students into their time at the university. It helps that many of our partners work with students in the university, and Mark and Denzil are no exception – totally integrating the students into their crew and helping them build their confidence in the practical application of filmmaking. Scovell, Adam (12 January 2023). "Enys Men: The films that frighten us in unexplainable ways". BBC Culture . Retrieved 15 January 2023.

The Shining is also possibly referenced as well as the subgenre of body horror – although this element is never as nightmarish as some of the grotesquery glimpsed in David Cronenberg’s more extreme productions. The BFI are set to release the British horror film, Enys Men (2022) on Blu-ray & DVD this May 2023 in the UK. In fact it’s a dual release which includes both formats. You can find out more about how Falmouth University supports independent cinema through its Sound/ Image CinemaLab here. Pippa Considine Enys Men, the new feature from visionary Cornish filmmaker Mark Jenkin, to be released by the BFI on 13 January 2023". bfi.co.uk . Retrieved 8 October 2023.Jenkin's film is a perfect, anti-romantic expression of Cornish eeriness. "There is certainly a level of abstraction that comes from shooting small-gauge film," he says of his trusty Bolex 16mm camera, "but most of the eerie comes later in the process, [in] how the images bump up against each other and most importantly how the sound works with, and against, the image.” Haunters of the Deep (1984, 61 mins): a Children’s Film Foundation adventure that shares many of the same West Cornwall locations as Enys Men, and made quite an impression on its director. No sound is recorded on set, with Jenkin relying on post synch for audio. “For me going into the edit with total silence is a brilliant starting point,” he says. It’s both a budgetary and creative choice, with no attempt at realism. Acclaimed independent Cornish horror feature Enys Men, from film-maker Mark Jenkin, was released earlier this month by the BFI. The low budget film was made using Jenkin’s unique workflow and is a masterclass in how to incorporate university learning into hands-on film-making. Latif, Leila (20 May 2022). " 'Enys Men' Review: An Artfully Constructed Folk Horror Film About Never-Ending Grief". IndieWire.

Enys Men is the much anticipated follow-up to Bait, Jenkin’s breakthrough success which earned him a BAFTA for Outstanding Debut by a British Writer, Director or Producer in 2020. The pace here is slow and dialogue is minimal – with much of it coming via her limited interactions on a battered VHF metal maritime radio. No one is named. In addition to the Volunteer and the Girl; there’s the Boatman; the Preacher and others. Enys Men is far from plot heavy and I don’t even know how much of it I properly understood. Despite this, never for a moment was I remotely bored. Instead, I found myself consistently fascinated.Enys Men premiered in the Directors' Fortnight section of the 2022 Cannes Film Festival. [1] [4] [6] [7] [8] In Bodmin, the film's opening night sold out within hours, and the film was a box office success for cinemas across Cornwall. [5] Mark Jenkin is based in a studio in Newlyn, West Cornwall where he writes, edits and scores his films himself. His debut feature Bait was released in the UK by BFI Distribution, becoming an arthouse hit, eventually screening at hundreds of cinemas and taking over half a million at the UK box office. Mark Jenkin and his producers, Linn Waite and Kate Byers, won the BAFTA for outstanding debut by a writer, producer or director. Mary Woodvine (Poldark, Judge John Deed), who played Sandra in Bait, plays the volunteer in Enys Men. She reunites with Bait co-star Edward Rowe (The Witcher, House of the Dragon) who is the boatman. Based in West Cornwall, and previously working in theatre, film and television for over 30 years, Woodvine is in almost every scene of the film and works with minimal dialogue and with the camera following her in extreme close-up. The Duchy of Cornwall (1938, 15 mins): a rapid survey of early Cornish history looks at the county's language, landscape and industries What all of this means is never stated outright. Things don't "add up." That's fine with me. I was riveted by every moment of this haunting weird film. "Enys Men" made me legitimately uneasy.

Lemercier, Fabien (27 April 2022). "Scents of Europe and discoveries at the Cannes Directors' Fortnight". cineuropa.org . Retrieved 8 October 2023. Will it scare you? I doubt it. If this is a folk horror then it’s an experimental, existential and enigmatic folk horror. It will likely unsettle you along the way though. a b Morris, Steven (6 January 2023). " 'Interest is off the scale': Cornish cinema fans snub Avatar for local folk horror". The Guardian . Retrieved 10 January 2023.As identified by Macfarlane and others, the eerie acts as a kind of counter-tradition to the romantic Pastoralism of English art; rather than portraying the English countryside as a place of chocolate-box fantasy, it has often zoned in on specific rural localities and tried to convey their haunted essences that are beyond the understanding of urbanite considerations. Looking beyond these screen influences, continuity can also be drawn between Jenkin's film and eerie work in other media that is similarly focused on Cornwall. With its array of menhir (human-produced, upright standing stones) dotting the landscape and rich folklore, the location has inspired many artists. Eileen Agar used Cornish landscapes (as well as physical debris from the coastline) to make an incredible array of eerie and esoteric work across many forms, while sculptor Barbara Hepworth played off the standing stones and shapes within the Cornish landscape to create a celebrated catalogue of eerie sculptures. Even novels such as Over Sea, Under Stone (1965) by Susan Cooper recognise the eerie potential of the location. "And then," wrote Cooper, "looming over the dark brow of the headland, they saw the outline of the standing stones… As they drew nearer, the stones seemed to grow, pointing silently to the sky, like vast tombstones set on end." She could easily be describing visuals seen in Enys Men. It is also striking that her character in Enys Men doesn’t suffer the degradations that women often face in horror films. The volunteer remains a largely peaceful presence throughout, even when seven maidens start singing, or a scar on her stomach starts to show signs of other life, or when she responds to a figure singing in a church, played by her father, the 93-year-old actor John Woodvine. Jenkin’s style is so unusual, so unadorned, it feels almost like a manuscript culture of cinema. There is real artistry in it. Enys Men is written and directed by Mark Jenkin. It stars Mary Woodvine, Edward Rowe, Flo Crowe and John Woodvine.