Movie Review: Men (2022)

_{Film still with Jessie Buckley from Men movie. Source}

Alex Garland is, without a doubt, an interesting creative. Having graduated The University of Manchester in UK with a degree in History of Arts, he went on to become a successful novelist (The Beach, The Tesseract) and screenwriter of the Generation X. Nowadays he is also a film and series director, known mostly for his debut Ex Machina back in 2014 as well as 2018’s Annihilation. His work in cinema is anything but forgettable or trivial. Which was the primary reason why I found myself at the movie theater on the day of the UK release of the director’s latest film Men, widely branded as folk horror. Whether it really is folk horror is debatable, imo, but what one cannot argue about is the intrigue, which such a tag creates, since everyone who’s familiar with Garland’s films and series would know that they deal with science fiction and technology, where there is a notable focus on human condition, and how that relates to respective environments.

In all honesty, Annihilation stuns me every time I watch it. This really isn’t that common with movies in my reality. Many times the main reason for amazement when it comes to films that are based on someone’s literary work is the story idea, or ideas that all belong to the original author. Annihilation, on the other hand, is amazing because of the ideas one would expect a cinematic work to try and impress the viewer with. It’s pure visual art. The quintessence of Garland’s craft of exploration of inner human’s relation to that what surrounds it on the outside is once more that what one pays to see, when buying the ticket to watch Men.

The title of this latest Garland’s movie is aptly laconic as one soon finds out despite the film having a female lead called Harper, played by Jessie Buckley (The Courier, War & Peace), who’s condition is being explored, and we get Penny Dreadful’s Rory Kinnear in this, on whom falls the duty of playing important role in Harper’s world. Harper is renting a beautiful house on the countryside while dealing with dark memories of being made responsible for decisions by someone else. The countryside in this movie is one of the reasons behind the folk horror tag, others being the play with the concept of archetypes as well as symbols that deal with death and rebirth, and reaching maturity.

_{Film still with Jessie Buckley from Men movie. Source}

But expect nothing so visually stunning as Annihilation – this is rather the opposite, sticking with basic things, and practically everything from settings to cast to effects speaks of a film that’s created during lockdown. And yet, make no mistake, the art is still there in all its glory despite the stripped down production values – the restrictions during pandemic and a shortage of available budget certainly don’t make for obstacles to Alex Garland’s creativity: simple tripod shots that capture not only subjects, but also objects such as facade of a house, or a monument with a symbol; long shots creating a mystery as to why we are seeing someone; aerial shots that form a part of what could be called a piano music video; some remarkable editing and post production tricks – I could say there’s never a dull moment in Men movie. However there is one thing we should be clear about, when it comes to expectations here: this is not something where events unfold in a dynamic manner. Quite the contrary. Which, in turn, brings me back to the folk horror tag. I would propose a tag meditative horror instead. I know I could easily get a counter argument that it could as well be called oneiric or perhaps even surrealist horror thus avoiding using a new term where there is a clear influence notable from something that already exists.
Ok, I’m not sure if I’m up to the task of winning any argument here, but I think Men differs notably from The Wicker Man or Midsommar, or the new Wrong Turn movie. I think it is a lot closer to Jordan Peele or Brandon Cronenberg’s work, where mood is more important than unfolding the story or that what settings are there. Besides, there is a truth in something I happened to read on Twitter recently, which said that A24 is almost a genre in its own right.
Be that as it may, Alex Garland’s work is not only in tune with current trends in horror genre; it bleeds creativity that will be appreciated by people who don’t usually watch horror. It’s pure, unadulterated art.

Peer Ynt

**** Read my review of 2021 movie Gaia, mentioning Annihilation here.

**** Read my review of 2021 movie A Classic Horror Story, which plays with the folk horror genre here.