Enys Men

1/23/2023

This is an almost entirely single-handed, dialogue free, story of a woman who is taking (very basic) climate and wildlife data on an otherwise uninhabited island off the Cornish Coast. Clearly this has been a mining island in days gone by, with ruins and mine-workings strewn around the place and those exude a sort of creepiness that is only augmented by the constant wind and the sound of the waves crashing against the rocks. Her days are routine, to say the least, but gradually we start to realise that the island has been touched by tragedy - as has the woman (Mary Woodvine) herself. Auteur Mark Jenkin doesn't rush with this, but rather takes his time to slowly but surely allow us to put together some of the pieces of just what drew this woman to this isolated and lonely spot. It's that re

8/25/2026

There is something increasingly funny about the Volunteer repeatedly writing **“NO CHANGE”** in her notebook, because *Enys Men* is a film in which almost nothing will agree to stay where it has been put. A woman in a red coat observes seven flowers on a remote Cornish island. She checks them, makes tea, drops a stone down a mine shaft, struggles with the generator and does it all again. Initially these repetitions establish routine. Then Mark Jenkin starts altering the things around them. People appear who may belong to different times. A scar acquires lichen. Miners emerge from below ground. A standing stone begins to feel less like scenery than something patiently keeping watch. The temptation is to solve all this, but *Enys Men* becomes more interesting if the island is allowed t