Mercy prattles on about “the witch in the wood” who signed the devil’s book after making a pact with Black Philip: imagery so richly familiar that, one realizes with a shudder, they must have been exposed to it repeatedly. Katherine is distraught with grief, and Thomasin, left to mind the twins, grows frustrated with their shenanigans, in particular their tendency to make up songs about their golden-eyed long-horned black goat, Black Philip (this damn ram is right out of Central Casting). In this moment, fairy tale and folklore converge: the wolf in the woods, the disappeared child, the nubile young woman wandering in the thicket. The family suspects a wolf that has been skulking around the homestead. Thomasin also tends the new baby, and one day at the edge of the forest, while playing peek-a-boo with him, she looks down to find he has vanished. She also teases her pubescent brother Caleb (the very impressive Harvey Scrimshaw), and chases after the mischievous (and, frankly, creepy) young twins Jonas and Mercy (Lucas Dawson and Ellie Grainger). Their teenage daughter Thomasin (Anya Taylor-Joy, in an incandescent performance) does endless chores and confesses her sins aloud to God. William and wife Katherine (Ralph Ineson and Kate Dickie, fine British actors both featured in Game of Thrones) tend their farm and raise their strapping children with frequent doses of thanksgiving and prayer. Soon enough the household seems to be thriving. They arrive at the edge of a forest, their meager belongings in a rickety wagon, and smile and praise God for their fortune. The superstitious awe of nature is laid bare, pointing again and again to the shadowy forest as its crucible.Īs the film begins, a man at odds with the leaders of Plimoth Plantation (portrayed with letter-perfect authenticity in its costumes and sets), decides to leave the settlement and set out with his family to establish a homestead. Thing is, no film I’ve ever seen has drawn so heavily on the era’s cultural imagination to evoke the Salem zeitgeist: what must it have been like to believe that witchcraft could actually cause miscarriages, blight harvests, and prolong impotence (so to speak)? The Witch delves into the dark heart of this distant era, finding both predictable and unexpected motives: childish jealousy, frustration and rage, yes, but also curiosity and yearning. Right? Well, also land grabbing and judicial corruption and moldy grain, I’m told. Echoing some less-is-more terror narratives of recent years ( The Blair Witch Project, Session 9, Martha Marcy May Marlene), Eggers’ brief jolts of violence seem perfectly calibrated to knock us out of our seats not by generating horror on the screen, but within our viscera.ĭid you ever wonder why the Salem Witch Trials happened? I mean, crazy, right? Those people accused and executed were all devout Puritans! It was those bitchy, narcissistic servant girls at the heart of it all, bored with drudgery and craving attention. The earthy visuals are awash in moody natural light, candle flame, shadows, and mist. With minimal special effects and a subdued emphasis on the supernatural, the tone throughout is elegantly restrained, with sound and imagery weaving a spell that transports the viewer to a place equal parts idyll and nightmare. Fledgling filmmaker Robert Eggers has crafted an atmospheric, chilling, and sensual depiction of the Colonial witch craze in The Witch. It’s a rare film that comes along to shatter our dearest folklores and breathe new life into narrative cliches. At the Kendall Square Cinema, AMC Assembly Row 12, and Somerville Theatre. Anya Taylor-Joy as Thomasin in “The Witch.”
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