Im really looking forward to Nosferatu. I really liked the VVitch. I watched that movie with the perspective that the VVitch was not an actual witch, but rather some sort of native fae spirit/s. The Town from wence the family was exiled, knows about the dark spirits that inhabit the wilderness, and dispite their severe protestant pretense, they recognize that these beings have some sort of tie or power over the land. And they demand sacrifice. No one talks about it for what it is. The usual methods are employed. Whatever these people did that got them exiled from the village could have been anything, it could have been legitimate or not, the result is the same. The old gods in the dark wood, shall have their pound of flesh. The towns people don't know what happens to the people they send out. They do their best not to think about it. Desperately crying out to heaven above to spare them the hell they know their actions earn them.
The family who is sent out like sacrificial lambs...the father knows what this is. The mother too, though the two will never discuss the matter. They will doggedly, stolidly trudge through their lot in life as best they can for as long as they can. At first they can barely abide the constant dolerous eye of the woods ever upon them looming down over their little clearing like the mists of sheol. But over time they...don't get used to it, but become numb to it. Their lives take on a strange dreamlike quality without any way apart from routine and the sun to mark the passage of time. The children begin "innocent" to their plight. The older children suspect, but the younger ones are as young ones are wont to be, already ensorceled by the glamours of the fey of the area. That the black goat of the woods should talk to them is nothing surprising because they see the unseen world for what it is.
It's the baby who is taken first. It is the way of such things. It makes the other caper so entertainingly. And that's what this movie feels like to me. It feels like I'm watching something powerful play with its new toys. The ones who refuse to play right get broken. Some are more fun to break than others. There is an undercurrent of twisted glee that seems to be oozing out of the forest and just...sullying the family in the clearing. And more, rather than fighting it(arguably the son manages to find if not escape ecstacy via this rout, but it could also be argued that all escape cost him was his life, but that is a tanget) the family for the most part just sort of wallows in it until they start to revel in it. There are of course all the mundane things that are there, but in the spirit of the movie i view it from the perspective that some sort of supernatural element is driving their psychosis. They're not just slowly going crazy(even though they are) They are being actively fucked with by what amounts to spirits of the land manifesting to them in various forms, but through the modern lens looking back the conclusion the audience tends to draw is the conclusion we expect the people of the time to have made(a witch) In the end the final girl, gets with the program and embraces her life as a favorite toy, or she was a changeling all along, that she was swapped out as a baby and meant to act out to bring the human family back to the woods that she came from and take their due as old gods of the land. And Shub Nigguruth(The black goat of the wood with a thousand young) can talk the whole time. ^_^
The movie is so subtle and so well written that you can literally get multiple theories of what the fuck is going on, and have them hold water for your own imagination, and I think that's pretty cool. Its what I liked about Star Wars the best back when star wars was just three movies and a tong of possibilies of what could be or might be. We used to sit around and tell our versions of how things got to where the movies started, or what happened between them or after. We had a hell of a lot of fun doing it. Expanding our own theories with the parts we liked best from our friends, testing our own theories against our friends visions to see how they came together or which one out.
I think that's the sweet spot for good movies. It's not the cinematic experience(even though it is) its how much the movie captures your imagination around it. I miss when more movie discussion was like that, over, how many buttfuckingly baffling descisions get made around the movie.
I cant wait to see what he does with Dracula.
