This haunting and suggestive Sundance film ensures you will not ever suppose of witches the same way again.
The mesmerizing Sundance horror hit You, Will, not Be Alone is a story about witches, though not in a way you’ve ever seen ahead. Set in 19th century Macedonia, it follows the life of a youthful girl who's originally kidnapped from a vill and left to grow up in nearly complete insulation in a delve. This may sound like a story you have heard before, as flicks about witches are virtually a subgenre of their own.
Still, with writer-director Goran Stolevski’s film now getting an important justified wide release by Focus Features, it's important to establish just how inventive this movie is in terms of how it upends the conventions of the kidney to come commodity all its own. This is through not just the stunning performances of those like Noomi Rapace, who plays the first of numerous forms our promoter takes, but in the way, it frames its story around humanizing characters who are frequently just made into superficial monsters. It's apprehensive of its history, both cinematic and else, as it maps a path that's all its own.
The history of witches in pictures dates back to 1922’s groundbreaking Häxan, which is believed to be one of the first, if not the first, flick about witches ever. Originally dismissed upon its release, it has gained a newfound appreciation for how it excavated into the tradition of witches with multiple restorations. Also, there have been numerous figures of stories about witches that have begun to fall into certain patterns. These are generally erected around them being terrible beings, known for hijacking children and taking the forms of others to do so. It's in this long line that You Won’t Be Alone places itself, reinterpreting and-imagining numerous of these “ monstrous” aspects into commodities more mortal. It all becomes part of a prevailing sense of cinematic poetry about what it means to be alive with all the pain and pleasures that come with actuality. It does this with a subtle touch, drawing us into the generally underseen internal and external emotional countries of witches as completely developed characters.
When audiences were first passing this manner of subversive liar during the premiere at the jubilee, this significant shift in tone caught some off guard. This is because Novena, first played in her original form by a devoted Sara Klimoska, has numerous of the physical characteristics of what we imagine as a witch. Similar detail seems to indicate the film is going to be about her just committing further and further acts of violence. This, in remarkable fashion, turns out to just be the morning.
Having been fully insulated from any social connections, Novena is constantly in a state of getting. She soon finds ties to loving people that watch for her and want to see her be happy. It's this bittersweet disquisition of the value of community that carries her and us through the film. It's both primitive and profound as the trip is told entirely through her eyes as she goes through a process of awakening over multiple duplications of herself. As her character peels off the skin of who she was to take on new forms, it makes use of the spear not to scarify but to connect us to her experience of revitalization. Similar scenes of body horror invite the followership to respond not with fear but with empathy as we grow with her in the process of her changes.
What becomes indeed more intriguing is how the film grapples with the pressure between Novena and her witch mama that was the primary one to “ raise” her. Maria brought to life with a multifaceted performance by Anamaria Marinca, is frequently resentful of the son she has taken on. Still, this isn't reduced to be a one-note depiction or mock that could fluently be demonized as numerous analogous delineations of witches have been. You begin to realize that both Maria and Navena have further in common than the original prints establish. They both are outlanders, uncertain if they will ever be suitable to be part of a world that we all know would view them with nausea and fear. They both must struggle to find a way to survive and frequently pay dearly just to make it to the coming day. This is hardly what we imagine when we suppose of stories about witches, as they're generally reduced to being the villains of the film, not the bones in whose shoes we're placed. Indeed when Maria becomes the primary antagonist to Navona, it's done with an eye for complexity and nuance that shows the humanity of the characters at the center indeed as they're in opposition to each other.
Don’t let it be incorrect, You Won’t Be Alone is still a horror film through and through, with a plenitude of violence as well as a spear. The ending itself is a primary illustration of this as it's unsettling and disturbing. Still, the way this fits into the story is nothing short of spectacular indeed as it's deeply painful. It all becomes about living life in an unattractive world and chancing a tranquil sense of beauty where you can. It's a film where the witches are just as mortal as we are, if not more so, and strive for a meaningful actuality where they can live freely with people that watch for them as who they are.
This represents a narrative challenge to the conventions of stories about witches that most easily draws visual alleviation from the work of director Terrence Malick. The focus on nature and the pastoral geographies with broad camera movements feel like some of the most beautiful parts of Malick’s masterful A Hidden Life in the scenes before the horrors of the world come rushing in.
A similar feeling is replicated though still taken in its direction by Stolevski, pitching the common generality of its central legendary numbers with a grace that works to make a deeper substance of understanding. It's each about uncovering their provocations and expedients for themselves that invites an inviting sense of empathy for beings that have frequently been relegated to be a target of misprision. In doing so, the film becomes a profound and lyrical experience that's unlike any other film working in this kidney of recent memory. How it settles into being about a participated desire to sculpt out a life of joy despite tragedy is both transcendent and transformative.
It's suggestive and creepy, chancing a continuing sense of connection from its folk horror roots. The poignant and patient manner in which it achieves this all comes back to being about imagining what we suppose of when we suppose of witches. It leaves a lasting print, icing you will noway suppose of its subjects in the same way again.