Witches have always been the source of myriad emotions - and that in this, our enlightened age, the 21st century. 'The Witch' (stylized as The VVitch) is more of a fable - almost a surreal catechism. It is not, of course, something that judders your bones and causes you to jump out of your seat. Rather, the atmosphere puts us back in the New England of the Puritans. Would you question God and if you do, well you have pledged your allegiance to the devil is the circumstance in which we find ourselves.
Robert Eggers remarks that the film was made to be a Puritans nightmare, something directly out of the mind of a 17th century New England-er. And such a nightmare, given its time would have to be purely inherited. We are treated to how this nightmare is inherited as well, with a father-son sequence that isn't about bees and bird but more about how humans are born and bred in sin and redemption is a distant dream. Never are we allowed to distance ourselves from the fact that the family who's life we are deposited into do not exactly have a happy life of living off their produce. William, the head of the family,banished from the plantation where he lived and farmed with his then pregnant wife, sons and daughters builds a modest farm at the edge of the woods. The rest of the story is designed to be and works as a beautiful bed time horror story.
Before we get to the actors, I would be remiss if I did not mention that Robert Eggers is first and foremost a production designer, someone who and I quote 'if I got asked for dirty green curtains, I gave them the best dirty green curtains they'd get'. The proof of course is the clawing natural light photography, faithful production design, costumes and imagery. His sense of design extends and is shared by his team in researching New England Puritan history and most of the dialogue and helps in the time travel we are subject to. Cinematographer Jarin Blaschke and composer Mark Korven lend beautifully atmospheric imagery and background score so much so that at a certain point in the tension, silence has already etched a melody in our minds.
The cast in the meanwhile almost seem as committed to the movie as the Vatican was to killing off women of wisdom in the middle ages. Ralph Ineson, Anya Taylor-Joy, Kate Dickie, Harvey Scrimshaw, Ellie Grainger and Lucas Dawson comprise the entire cast save a couple of supporting actors. Not only does keeping a small circle of actors the main cast pay off in terms of keeping us engrossed to their fate, it also shows us the darkness that descends on them. The actors are almost fiercely committed to the movie, mouthing their 'thou''s and 'thy''s with such casual conviction that we are sucked into the soul of their plight. Anya and Kate Dickie in particular and it should come as no surprise are brilliant in their characters.
Without going into too many details, 'The VVitch' if it were necessary to be described in comparison would be in the same coven as 'The Shining'. Moody, atmospheric, generative and degenerative, the images flicker across the retinas like out of a crystal ball that has told you the future, murky and realistic at the same time. When a cold dreary sky is offset by a thick brownish grey wood, when the wind blows across a reinforced barn roof and howls down the chimney, when the rising full moon is blurred by the cast of a shadowy fear - 'The Witch' wins you over in the chills it sends down your spine. It is not be missed as a classic concocted in genius fashion in the masterful hands of Robert Eggers, Jarin Blaschke and Mark Korven.
