The folkloric majesty of Cornwall in Mark Jenkin’s ‘Enys Men’
From rock pools that ebb and swell with the changing tides to the dark dripping caves that house a library of cautionary tales, coastlines across the world have long held an ethereal majesty equally beautiful and terrifying. Unlike the glittering cities whose shape and size have drastically bulked across modern history, coastlines largely retain their brutalist structure, defined by large sheets of rock and harsh, eroding edges. In Britain, despite boasting impressive coastlines from Bournemouth to John O’Groats, it is in Cornwall where maritime folklore flourishes.
Cornish filmmaker Mark Jenkin is no stranger to the magnetism of these landscapes either, with the homegrown auteur carving out his own creative niche from the salty soil of the county itself. Shooting on grainy 16mm celluloid, which looks and feels as if it has been pulled from the St Ives sand like a fleshy razor clam, the films of the distinctly patriotic Cornish mind have become emblematic of the innovative greatness of modern British cinema.
With a multitude of short experimental films to his name, Jenkin made a name for himself following the release of his breakthrough film Bait in 2019, a film that challenged the rigid formalism of contemporary British cinema as well as the gentrification of one of the country’s poorest counties. Set in an unnamed Cornish village, the film follows Martin (Edward Rowe), a fisherman without a boat and his tribulations after his old childhood home is sold to wealthy Londoners.
Hitting the industry with an aesthetic gut punch, Jenkin’s follow-up movie was always going to attract the attention of eager fans of British cinema, hoping the director could replicate his form whilst spurring his style forward. Enys Men, the director’s 2023 follow-up, does just this, feeling like a spiritual continuation of Bait, holding all the same values in its carefully crafted cross-section of historic Cornish folklore.
As if the elemental product of the sheer swirling winds and salty spit of the Cornish coast and of several generations of Cornish folklore, Enys Men is a haunting drama that takes place on an uninhabited island off the Cornish coast in 1973. Practically the only living soul who roams the barren lands is a lonely wildlife volunteer (Mary Woodvine) who records the daily observations of a rare flower as she navigates the forces of the island, both real and imaginary.
Feeling like the protagonist of an old-wives tale written on battered parchment, Enys Men is an occasionally haunting yet constantly hypnotising ghost tale that focuses not on just one spectre but on a whole land that teems with an omnipotent presence. Though somewhat frightening, these ghouls are not the same ones you may find occupying a satanic puzzle box or a dusty loft, they instead exist with a calming inevitability, like the echoes of generations of ritual.
Whilst coastal waters across the UK are also described with similar mysticism, the magnetism of Cornwall’s ancient majesty cannot be truly matched, with Jenkin bottling this essence in his 2023 film. Living in an isolated barn that cracks and splutters as if it is too ‘at sea’, the protagonist dedicates her life to the ritual of maintaining the extraordinary flowers of the island alive. Living among a number of spectres and apparitions, her dedication to the land will become legend upon her passing, with life renewing on the island with each new lapping wave.
