You Won’t Be Alone (2022)

Directed by Goran Stolevski. Starring Sara Klimoska, Anamaria Marinca, Alice Englert, Noomi Rapace, Carloto Cotta, Félix Maritaud, Arta Dobroshi, Mladen Vuković, Predrag Vasić. [R]

The existential conundrum of what it is to be human in the flesh of a slow, conspicuously meditative folk horror story, set in 19th-century rural Macedonia when an ancient burnt witch (Marinca) gets its (proverbial and literal) claws into young Nevena (Klimoska). Nevena, who had been sealed in a cave throughout her childhood because of her mother’s misguided belief that this would protect her, is claimed and transformed by the witch’s cursed influence, and she soon after wanders the mountains and villages, taking the physical form of her victims and experiencing the hardships, sacrifices, and suffering of their lives. Resembles a cross between The Witch and Under the Skin in both its chilly curiosity and the visceral bluntness that shatters the eerie, Terence Malick-like spell that writer/director Stolevski is so eager to weave. Sound design and music play a critical role in its effect, notably the high ethereal drones and the sickening snap of bones/tendons combined with the wet tearing of flesh. The telling, however, can’t escape a whiff of self-importance, and while it’s refreshing for the story to be shown more than it’s told, the poetry is more of the picaresque variety than the philosophical or emotional. Following almost a dozen short films dating back fifteen years, this marks Stolevski’s first feature-length effort.

66/100