There is more than one way to dramatise the… interesting situation we’ve been living in over the past two years. Sure, a filmmaker could go the literal route, have a story set during the actual COVID-19 pandemic as a means to connect the fiction to our own reality, but there’s also the less obvious way. Something that can use the veneer of fiction to brush against the thought processes and emotions indicative of this time, but without being as direct about it. And with the latest from writer/director/editor Ben Wheatley, a creative I’ve come to rely on when it comes to interesting material to write reviews for, we have a story that definitely has its cultural specificities, but is aiming for something more cerebral than the likes of Locked Down or Host.
Largely taking place in a forest, the film follows scientist Martin (Joel Fry) and park ranger Alma (Ellora Torchia) as they make their way through the trees from a government outpost to the work site of another scientist (Hayley Squires), in hopes of helping the effort to cure a virus that has taken hold across the world. It carries a similar rustic feeling as Wheatley’s Colin You Anus, aided by Clint Mansell’s exquisite soundtrack work, and the way it mingles iso-horror, enviro-horror, and full-on drug trip horror, feels cut from the same cloth as something like The Beach House.
Everything from the visuals to the sound design to the plot in and of itself is made from combining the natural world with man-made technology, and the results can range from the eerie to the montage-fit-for-a-Mandy-sequel. Like, for real, Nick Gillespie’s cinematography combined with Wheatley’s manic editing genuinely get to that level of psychedelic and nightmarish.
In the dialogue, there’s definitely some familiar ideas floating around to do with the possibility with living with such a plague out in the world, or what life will be like once it’s gone, but most of it feels like it’s trying to tap into more subconscious ideas to do with what this kind of isolation has collectively done to us. I’d make a joke about how this is a feature-length version of those ‘Nature is healing, we are the virus’ memes… except I’m starting to think that the film is actually trying to be that. Maybe it’s got something to do with British comedy-horror legend Reece Shearsmith and his performance as a crazy man living in the woods. Just maybe.
But keeping with that ‘nature is healing’ idea, the film manages to get quite a lot of unnerving material out of what that idea really means. The idea that we’ve done so much damage to the environment that, irrespective of where this virus originated from, our ecosystem is taking advantage of it to try and get us out of the way. That the best thing we can do is return to the earth (by being buried in it). It also made me think of the more anti-science response to COVID, with the usual irritants of anti-vaxxers coming out of the woodwork to spout their theories on natural immunity, and how scientists can’t be trusted, and all manner of other helpful things for those who really do want to return to the earth.
That’s what I mean about the subconscious shit: After the first 5-10 minutes, the specifics to do with viruses start to peter out and we’re largely left with the surreal environment within the forest and how it’s changing the people within it. And in-between the excellent gore effects, the rather oddball atmosphere, and light and sound being used to alter a person’s entire way of thinking (quite the metaphor for the effect of ‘developing film’), there’s this inescapable feeling that I’m watching someone trying to deal with all these unfamiliar feelings in the only way they know how. Trying to “give [this] feeling a face”, as it were.
I’ll admit, even with my little spiel about how much I appreciate Ben Wheatley from a critical standpoint, I can’t say I’ve been outright wowed by any of his work so far and that is unfortunately the case here. I could even argue that this is one of those curios that is more interesting to think about than it is engaging to watch, but with how bananas the visuals can get and how weird some of these ideas are, that feels like a mild disservice. It’s an act of artistic expression meant to try and make sense of the bizarre situation we’ve all been living in, because humans have a habit of using storytelling to try and make sense of the inherent chaos of our existence. It may not entirely succeed in turning that into satisfying entertainment, but there’s something about this woodland freak-out that I find rather intriguing and quite commendable.
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