Blood and all,it’s like a series of rebirths,allowing Nevena – or whatever she should now be called – to escape the constraints of patriarchy,switch gender and sometimes species,and be played by a number of actors including Noomi Rapace and Alice Englert,the cast’s two most recognisable names.
It’s not a wholly new idea,but it’s a promising one,and Stolevski is not afraid to go wherever it leads him:the protagonist does,for example,experience sex from both a male and female point of view. But much of this feels under-imagined,too slippery for its own good,as if the society we catch in glimpses were little more than a backdrop for a spiritual journey.
“A whispery voiceover in the manner of Terrence Malick”:You Won’t Be AloneCredit:Madman
Indeed,the tense relationship between Maria and her one-time pupil is almost the only source of real drama. Nearly everything else is impressions knit together by whispery voice-over in the manner of Terrence Malick,subtitled in a manner somewhere between Joycean stream-of-consciousness and Yoda-speak:“I see new rivers spin open inside of me. Whoosh they whoosh in.”
The boxy Academy aspect ratio aside,Stolevski and cinematographer Matthew Chuang borrow heavily from Malick’s repertoire of visual mannerisms (off-centre close-ups,actors filmed hand-held from behind). In fairness,it must be said that Malick has never given us a scene involving a row of masturbating men viewed surreptitiously by a witch in the guise of a dog,though even this isn’t as graphic as what you might be picturing.
Mark Bradshaw’s score,with its hymn-like piano melodies,reinforces the sense of archaic religiosity – which is curious in some ways,given that Christianity figures overtly mainly as a force directed towards the persecution of witches.
Noomi Rapace in You Won’t Be Alone.Credit:Madman
But it underlines the paradox of a film which is intended in some fashion as a provocation,yet retains a certain softness,even a sentimentality. This is the tale of a seeming innocent whose freedom depends on her capacity for violence – but the implications are never adequately explored.
Instead,we’re left with the notion of a heroine or hero who is everyone and no-one,permanently alienated yet all-embracing. This is,perhaps,a symbol of what it is to be an artist – though I’ll give Stolevski the benefit of the doubt,since the idea somehow makes my skin crawl more than any of the gore.
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