Enys Men

A horticulturalist’s observations of a rare flower on an uninhabited island off the Cornish coast leads her into a metaphysical nightmare. A folk horror that already feels canonical to the genre, Mark Jenkin’s Enys Men (Cornish for ‘stone island’) is development of the singular style he employed to such memorable effect in Bait, his sui generis debut, and is similarly filmed on manual 16mm, with post-synched dialogue, uncannily precise editing and a heightened sound design. The approach here is even more experimental, and the narrative is broken into impressionistic fragments that gradually coalesce, whilst retaining a sense of mystery. The film has all the tropes of folk horror – the discovery of something ancient and unknowable in a rural setting, pagan ritual, tension between scientific inquiry and superstition – whilst being entirely fresh. A multi-layered, endlessly debatable, and ultimately satisfying enigma.