Hidden Skin Gem: Pesky Stones and Cornish Swims in Mark Jenkin’s “Men of Language”

For his BAFTA-winning feature film BaitConsidered one of the best films of 2019 by many critics, British director Mark Jenkin threw back cinematic technology, shooting the entire film on old handheld cameras using black and white 16mm wire, which he made by hand. . .

Later, Ennis Men, There is an immediately noticeable difference: it is in color. But don’t think that Jenkin has taken a futuristic leap. “No, it’s exactly the same thing: same equipment, same process, still 16mm. But I always wanted to do it in color.”

However, the filmmaker recognizes a modern luxury that has been allowed: in this case, the negatives were processed in a lab. In fact, such a choice has caused some concern that “flatter” and “cleaner” images are free of smudges, scratches, and roughness. Bait A unique and relaxing film. Fortunately, help came with his team.

“Fortunately, the cameras and lenses we used were very old,” he said. “Also, when you blow a 16mm canvas onto the big canvas, it starts to crumble, which makes it interesting to me where the grain comes out and you can actually see and feel the texture.

I like Bait, Ennis Men – World premiere in two-day competition at the Cannes Film Festival – set in Jenkin’s native Cornwall (the title means “Stone Island” in Cornwall), a country in southwest England rich in history and personal identity. Its roots go back to the ancient Britons before the Roman conquest. გრამ But where Bait The revolt of the former fishermen against the residents against the tourists is investigated; Ennis Men It is a much more destructive, disturbing, open, but full of noise (everything, p. BaitDuplicated with the following recordings, mostly from Jenkin’s studio – the entire movie was filmed silently).

Set on a small, uninhabited coastal island, the film tells the story of a lone Wildlife Trust volunteer who daily observes a rare flower growing near an abandoned tin mine. Its existence is an endless cycle of routine, but gradually it begins to collide with worlds and timelines that once inhabited Earth, including those lost at sea and ancient miners. In the center of the island is a mysterious Bronze Age stone that can be seen in the distance, but it seems that sometimes it approaches your lonely hut and other times it disappears completely.

I got a lot of answers Bait “It was horrible, because of the fear and prejudice, and it made me want to write something that wasn’t too obvious, but something that touched more consciously,” said Jenkin, who comes from ancient peoples. Tales about these ancient standing stones (he was told early on that the 19-man ring where he lived was actually 19 girls who turned to stone to dance on Saturdays). According to him, the concept of volunteer “was formed from the idea of ​​petrifying a person on a monolith”.

The first draft of the script. Ennis Men Writing “crazy” for three days, Jenkin kept things, of course, analogous to pencil and paper. But it wasn’t until he had typed out his manuscript outline and read the prints that he noticed.

“I thought I was writing a horror movie, but there was no horror in the script,” says the director. “But I realized early on that horror is in shape. It’s almost like you shouldn’t trust the form and structure of the film.”

Jenkin admits he’s nervous about calling Ennis Men “Direct Horror” for fear of disappointing fans of the genre. While it might be short on true fear, it’s a fast-paced and chilling enough movie to stick with people for a long time.

As he notes, “Before taking the audience and taking them into the darkest corner of the forest and then taking them back, that’s what takes you into the forest and leaves you there.”