Page 12 - aruba-today-20220404

a12 people & arts
Monday 4 april 2022

Life through a witch's eyes in 'You Won't

Be Alone'

known little more than a
small pile of dead leaves.
Agog at the sun, the pas-
toral surroundings and
her new captor, Nevena
marvels at the world she
has no grasp of, or of her
place in it. In voiceovers
that bear a touch of those
found in Terrence Malick's
films, Nevena's half-formed
words — she calls Maria
"Witch-Mama" and herself
"Me-the-Witch" — struggle
for understanding. "Me, am
I devils?"
Maria begins raising Neve-

This image released by Focus Features shows Noomi Rapace in na as a kind of protégé
a scene from "You Won’t Be Alone. but her lessons are brutal.
Associated Press Seeing Nevena play with
By JAKE COYLE "You Won't Be Alone," a rabbit, Maria picks it up,
AP Film Writer which debuts in theaters snaps its neck and instructs,
Maybe it's a counter-re- Friday, begins with a visit "Blood, not playthings." But
action to our increasingly from a 200-year-old witch Maria quickly grows frus-
digital reality, but lately (a brilliant Anamaria Marin- trated with her witch pupil.
horror films have increas- ca). She's known as Old Tiring of motherhood, she
ingly turned to primal pasts Maid Maria or as the Wolf- transforms into a wolf and
to resurrect the rituals and Eateress, and her face is leaves Nevena alone at a
fears of folktale. pock-marked from the fire forest creek.
It's a strikingly global trend, that wouldn't consume Nevena is left to roam the
spanning puritan New Eng- her. She has come for a countryside, where her un-
land ("The Witch"), rural peasant woman's infant usual point of view lends
Iceland ("Lamb"), North daughter, Nevena. The an outsider's perspective
Dublin ("You Are Not My mother pleads to let her on humanity. She might
Mother") and pagan cults raise the child until she's as well be an alien in hu-
of Sweden ("Midsommar"). 16, a bargain that Maria man disguise. What she
The best of these movies strikes by cutting the child's sees both enraptures and
don't just dredge up a su- tongue out. After trying to horrifies her. Nevena soon
pernatural force from an- hide Nevena all her life in a realizes she, too, can trans-
other time but adapt the cave with a natural skylight form. After accidentally
spirit and psychology that it high above, Maria comes killing a peasant woman
emerged out of. for her, arriving in the form (Noomi Rapace), she uses
Goran Stolevski is an Aus- of a crow. her sharp black fingernails
tralian writer-director but This isn't a computer-gen- to clutch the woman's in-
he was born and raised in erated transformation, nor sides and stuff them insider
Macedonia. And in his fea- are any of those that fol- a cavity in her chest.
ture-film debut, "You Won't low. Shape shifting contin- "What isn't strange?" she
Be Alone," he has drawn ues throughout "You Won't muses. Well, the clawed-
from old regional witch Be Alone" but it is always out insides certainly are.
tales to craft a spell-bind- seen naturally and a little But "You Won't Be Alone"
ing immersion in a distant mysteriously. It's done in a — not really a horror film —
and fantastical 19th centu- cut. is much more concerned
ry Macedonian realm that When Maria leads Nevena with using the young witch's
nevertheless throbs with a (Sara Klimoska) out of the innocent but deadly out-
strange, timeless existen- cave, it's one of the most look to examine life. She's a
tialism. If you are pictur- bizarre baptisms into the witch anthropologist, and
ing broomsticks, don't. We world any person could her transformations from
aren't in Kansas anymore. make. Until now, she's one body to the next — a
beautiful young woman, a
young man, a dog, a child
— give her many windows
to look out from. As a wom-
an in the male-dominated
society, she notices that
when woman are around
men, "the mouth, it never
opens." But when the wom-
en are alone, conversation
flows. "The mouth, it stays
open."q