Enys Men is a different beast to Bait: more abstract, filmed in highly saturated colour and set in a landscape of eerie coastal moorland in the spring of 1973. The film’s star, other than Boswens, is an unnamed wildlife volunteer played by Mary Woodvine, Jenkin’s real-life partner and a familiar face in his other films. Every day, the volunteer stops to drop a stone into the murky depths of an abandoned tin mine (which I also visit en route to meet Jenkin, nearly falling off its gale-blasted foundations), then notes down her observations of a rare, curious flower growing nearby. 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. 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.

Speaking on The Film Makers Podcast podcast earlier this month, Jenkin shared the story of how his approach to film-making was born out of his re-found love of the craft. He started at sixth form college in the ’80s, developing stills photography, then shooting on Super8 in the 90s, before later becoming disillusioned. During a period recuperating after a minor operation, he watched and rewatched Mark Cousins’ 15-episode 2011 documentary, The Story of Film: An Odyssey. “I bought a Super 8 camera and a roll of film and retraced my steps.” Especially important to Jenkin is the Children's Film Foundation short Haunters of the Deep (1984) by Andrew Bogle. The CFF was a non-profit UK organisation that produced children's films for Saturday morning matinee screenings from the late 1940s to the 1980s. A spooky tale about a haunted mine that was set on the Cornish coastline, Haunters of the Deep feels especially poignant as an influence as, Jenkin enthuses, it "shares a location with Enys Men and also some subject matter. I remember seeing the film when I was young and being freaked out by some of the images. They have really stayed with me and I’ve paid homage to one of them." 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 Enys Men is shot in colour of a fierce, rich sort, and looks as if it was made in the year it is set: 1973. It is not exactly a horror film, despite some spasms of disquiet, but an uncanny evocation of how, when left utterly on our own, we spiral inwards into our memories, dreams and fears. Mary Woodvine (who was the well-off second-home owner in Bait) plays a woman living on a remote Cornish island, in a simple cottage whose future condition of moss-covered dereliction she appears to foretell or hallucinate. She is apparently researching the state of some wildflowers at the cliff-edge, every day inspecting their condition and taking their soil temperature, and solemnly recording the unvarying results in pencil in a ledger. In an article for Far Out, Calum Russell wrote that Enys Men feels "like the spiritual continuation of Bait", Jenkin's previous film, and "more like an innovative art installation than a piece of narrative fiction". [14] Accolades [ edit ] Year

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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.

Special features on the Dual Format Edition include an audio commentary by Mark Jenkin and Mark Kermode, recently filmed interviews, two complementary archival films and more. 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.” 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.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 Kermode, Mark (15 January 2023). "Enys Men review – Mark Jenkin's Cornish psychodrama will sweep you away". The Guardian . Retrieved 15 January 2023. Woodvine looks capably solitary and strong, weathered and at one with the landscape. The volunteer’s isolation and steady concentration sets a deliberate, incremental pace. Then lichen appears on the flowers like poison, spreading to the livid scar on her stomach. As Jenkin explains in an elegant commentary with Mark Kermode which otherwise insists on mystery, she soon slips into a mirror-image of her house, and her mindscape shifts.

The Duchy of Cornwall (1938, 15 mins): the strange beauty of Cornwall resonates through this iconic film from the vaults of the BFI National Archive Several more recent eerie films feel in tune with Jenkin's too. Ben Rivers' meditative Two Years at Sea (2012) shares some crossover thanks to its home-developed 16mm visuals and emptied landscapes (Rivers and Jenkin are sharing a stage at the BFI later this month to discuss their work), as do several experimental landscape films of recent years such as Gideon Koppel's Sleep Furiously (2008), Andrew Kötting's By Our Selves (2015) and Paul Wright's Arcadia (2017). 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.Here, Jenkin provides us with an extensive list of folk horror, television oddities, eerie children's movies and experimental shorts. FIRST PRESSING ONLY** Fully illustrated booklet featuring new writing on the film by William Fowler and Jason Wood among others

Set in 1973 on an uninhabited island off the Cornish coast, a wildlife volunteer's daily observations of a rare flower turn into a metaphysical journey that forces her as well as the viewer to question what is real and what is nightmare. [3] The film is set in 1973 on an uninhabited island off the Cornish coast. Mary Woodvine plays a wildlife volunteer’s who’s daily observations of a rare flower take her on a metaphysical journey which causes her to question what is real and what is torment. It is only later in Enys Men that more horrifying visions enter, and, even then, they seem abstract compared to the definite visitations of more typical horror. Sometimes these visions and atmospheres arise for only a second before vanishing, and with little indication that they were there at all. Women in traditional clothing move in unison on the cliff tops, lichen grows from an old scar on the volunteer's body, and the faces of miners peer out of the darkness of old shafts. Her life is quiet, punctuated by the occasional scratchy rumblings of a radio and the starter cord motor for her petrol generator, on which she is dependent for power. At bedtime she reads an environmental manifesto, Blueprint for Survival. Her relationship with Boswens is strange; the volunteer seems alone – but is she? 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.a b "Enys Men: Film poster a Cornish language breakthrough". BBC News. 6 December 2022 . Retrieved 15 January 2023. Selected items are only available for delivery via the Royal Mail 48® service and other items are available for delivery using this service for a charge.