‘Enys Men’ Review: Mark Jenkin Crafts A Wicked, Witchy Folk Freak Horror That Defies Genre [Cannes]

Two days after news broke that Isabela Merced joins the cast of Sony Pictures’ next ‘Spider-Man’ spin-off, “Madame Web,” the film adds another actor to its ranks. This time, it’s the first male actor in the female-heavy ensemble and quite the intriguing addition: French star and actor of Algerian descent, Tahar Rahim.

Ben Whishaw (“A Very English Scandal,” “Fargo”) and premieres June 2 on AMC+ and Sundance Now. It’s adapted from British writer Adam Kay’s bestselling book, based on the diaries he kept during his six-year career as a physician in the UK specializing in obstetrics and gynecology. Kay also wrote the series, which meanders along before taking a brutally dark “didn’t see that one coming” turn later on.

In years to come, the matchworn shirts from Manchester City's Premier League title-winning comeback victory over Aston Villa could sell for hundreds of pounds, if not thousands. For one young fan at the Etihad last week, however, who has their hands on a truly priceless jersey, it's one that money will never be able to buy.

Manchester City goalkeeper Zack Steffen has withdrawn from the USA squad for their June fixtures, throwing his World Cup chances into doubt.

Jessica Kiang A central image in Mark Jenkin’s weathered, rough-hewn, rocky folk horror “Enys Men” is of a weathered, rough-hewn rock. A menhir that looks like it’s been orphaned from Stonehenge stands perched on a blustery hillside on the eponymous isle (pronounced Ennis Main, the Cornish for “Stone Island”).

“The Stars at Noon” finds the French filmmaker Claire Denis shooting in Panama doubling for Nicaragua; directing a cast of Yanks, Brits, and assorted Central Americans; and working from a script switching between Spanish and English. Internationally coproduced Towers of Babel such as this aren’t at all uncommon at the Cannes Film Festival, but the errors in translation all over this disappointing foreign-relations drama run deeper than simple differences of ethnicity or language.

In the late 19th century, two French psychiatrists coined the term “folie à deux,” literally translated as madness for two, to describe what is now widely referred to as shared psychotic disorder, or when two — or more — people transmit delusional beliefs and occasional hallucinations to one another. The condition is most common in people closely related, who live in intimate proximity, and has been lengthily dissected by academics.

The great majority of us could only aspire, before “Moonage Daydream,” to step into the mind of David Bowie — the persona, the artist, the entity not yet proven terrestrial. Eclectic, unashamedly maximalist, and variously philosophical: all true of both the man himself and Brett Morgen’s feature-length docu-odyssey, which borrows its title from the 1976 hit, and just debuted as part of Cannes’ Midnight slate.

David Cronenberg has unfinished business with the future, which is tricky, seeing as it already constitutes a significant slice of his past. His new film — titled “Crimes of the Future,” as in committed by rather than during that span of time — finds the master on the other side of his extended sojourn in high-minded literary adaptation, biopic quasi-prestige, and Tinseltown satire, back to playing the body-horror hits on which he made his name.

“The Five Devils,” from French director Léa Mysius, captivates from its very first seconds. We see Adèle Exarchopoulos in a sparkling gymnast outfit with other similarly dressed girls, all watching an enormous fire in the background; when she turns around, she is crying — fire, beauty, passion and death all conveyed in one image.

Detective Hae-joon investigating the death of a man who fell from a mountain top. When he meets the deceased man’s wife in Park Chan-wook’s latest film in competition at Cannes, Decision To Leave.  

“It’s apparently fun to drown,” says sixteen-year-old Chloé, the droll, moody teen at the heart of Charlotte Le Bon’s debut feature, “Falcon Lake.” It’s a pithy line that echoes Cecilia Lisbon’s response (“Obviously, Doctor, you’ve never been a thirteen-year-old girl”) when she’s asked why she tried to harm herself in Sofia Coppola‘s “The Virgin Suicides.” Unlike Cecilia and her sisters, Chloé only plays at being dead, seeing how long she can float in the lake near her family’s cabin or lie in the road like a deer hit by a passing car.

Mark Jenkin’s 2019 film Bait had the rare distinction of being a genuine out-of-the-blue discovery, featuring heavily on UK critics’ year-best lists after a modest arthouse release by the BFI. The black-and-white film’s experimental style was emphasized in all its press coverage, nodding to avant-garde auteurs like Stan Brakhage, Derek Jarman and Guy Maddin — all directors who are interested in the literal grain of film and video (indeed, Jenkin reportedly developed the negative with coffee and washing soda then distressed the image by hand). Throw in post-synch sound, and you have a film more likely to screen to two people and a dog at a smoky underground 1960s cine-club than win a BAFTA. 

Between her job as a French-English interpreter, the prospect of romantic fulfillment, and the impending deterioration of her father’s health, the woman holding together all the threads in Mia Hansen-Løve’s “One Fine Morning” navigates a wide spectrum of human emotion. In the director’s follow up to last year’s English-language meta homage “Bergman Island,” Sandra (Léa Seydoux) oscillates between desire and grief with believable fluidity.

“You can’t ever forget about the past,” Anthony Hopkins says with gentle heed and caution, in a key moment in writer/director James Gray’s intimate new film, “Armageddon Time,” a compassionate movie in perpetual contemplation of our collective accounts, both personally, socially and historically. After venturing out into the jungle (“The Lost City Of Z”), exploring the unfathomable unknowns of deep space (“Ad Astra”) and coming to the same conclusions about the dark heart of human nature, Gray returns to the pavement of his New York City roots for one of his most emotionally honest works regarding the elemental moments of life, love and loss.

As the land we now know as Britain was being invaded, the Celts were pushed to the fringe, to places such as Cornwall or Wales. This is evident when you hear the idiosyncratic and distinct Welsh or Cornish languages being spoken.

Taylor Swift wasn't the only famous face in attendance at New York University's graduation ceremony on Wednesday. Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos watched from the crowd as their eldest son, 24-year-old Michael, crossed the stage to receive his diploma from NYU. The proud parents both shared multiple images on their Instagram Stories, with Consuelos posting a sweet family photo which showed that their daughter, Lola, and son, Joaquin, both tagged along to celebrate their older brother's accomplishment.

EXCLUSIVE:  NEON has taken the North American distribution rights to Mark Jenkin’s horror feature Enys Men, starring Mary Woodvine and Edward Rowe. The deal was hatched before Cannes, ahead of the pic’s world premiere in the Directors’ Fortnight section.