In the Director’s Statement in the Press Packet for his new film, Enys Men (2022), Mark Jenkin writes that the film emerged from “images” he had “in my head.” These images arise from the land and the history of Cornwall – from the moors, sea, standing stones, mines and miners, bal maidens (female mine workers), and the men who made their living on the sea. The film didn’t just emerge from these images, however; the film is these images. To describe Enys Men is not to describe a story or a plot – because story and plot demand linear time and conventional causality. Enys Men creates a world structured very differently. And it is, quite simply, one of the most thought-provoking, beautiful, and engrossing films I’ve watched in a long time – and certainly one of the best films of 2022.
