In honor of simplicity, the film «You Won't Be Alone» is a "cinéma fantastique" drama of the horror genre. However, due to the components of the story, the images, and its details, it seems like something that I would call ethnographic terror. There is even something symphonic about it, bordering on poetry.
It follows an unhappy girl through vicissitudes in search of her true self and the ways in which her nature manifests, until the unavoidable final confrontation in her survival journey: her other option is death.
Nevena has been born in a Macedonian community. One fateful morning an entity known as the Wolf-Eateress (later identified as Old Maid Maria), a victim of a centuries-old crime in that place, appears next to Nevena's cradle. Willing to drink the baby's blood in revenge, she gives in to the pleas of the little girl's mother and makes a deal to let her live and have her for herself until she turns 16. She leaves, but not before ripping out Nevena's tongue and leaving her speechless.
At the agreed age, the Wolf-Eateress punctually appears, takes Nevena with her, marks her with a sign of sorcery and, when the teenager rebels against her abuse, they go their separate ways and so starts Nevena's own journey towards a freedom that evades her and that will possibly never come: along the way she will transform into several beings, while the Wolf-Eateress constantly shows up to thwart Nevena's attempts to live a normal existence.
Shot in Serbia and spoken in Macedonian, the film defies generic labels and combines Costumbrismo, horror and eroticism, plus allusions to possible local legends. The drama feeds on commonplaces of witchcraft tales, but at the same time it breaks them and creates its own legend. Zero goat, zero inverted pentagram, and other clichés. The Wolf-Eateress is a being capable of training in black magic with graphic and violent resources; maybe she wants to learn to be a mother, maybe she wants contact with a person or any emotion besides hate, but she does not know those feelings. In her quest for revenge, the Wolf-Eateress finds such contact in Nevena, but she herself pushes the young woman to become her decisive opposite. Or in the wildest dramatic sense, nobody not even herself knows what her final purpose is.
«You Won't Be Alone» is the first feature by Macedonian-born director Goran Stolevski, who emigrated at 12 to Australia, where he lives. The film moves to the rhythm of the seasons, with subtlety and tranquility. In fact, in an interview Stolevski confided that he did not find a Macedonian legend to serve as a reference, but he was strongly attracted to the fate of the cyclical agrarian societies that he visited and in the one where he filmed in Serbia, settlements on the verge of extinction, with populations under 65 years of age. According to Stolevski, terror is not a theme that identifies him. His interest is the drama of human relations, and this tendency is evident in «You Won't Be Alone», in which what most defines the work is the evolution of Nevena and her interactions with her nemesis, nature and the peasants.
In short, a great film. Weird, repellent, but intelligent and visually beautiful. Recommended.
It follows an unhappy girl through vicissitudes in search of her true self and the ways in which her nature manifests, until the unavoidable final confrontation in her survival journey: her other option is death.
Nevena has been born in a Macedonian community. One fateful morning an entity known as the Wolf-Eateress (later identified as Old Maid Maria), a victim of a centuries-old crime in that place, appears next to Nevena's cradle. Willing to drink the baby's blood in revenge, she gives in to the pleas of the little girl's mother and makes a deal to let her live and have her for herself until she turns 16. She leaves, but not before ripping out Nevena's tongue and leaving her speechless.
At the agreed age, the Wolf-Eateress punctually appears, takes Nevena with her, marks her with a sign of sorcery and, when the teenager rebels against her abuse, they go their separate ways and so starts Nevena's own journey towards a freedom that evades her and that will possibly never come: along the way she will transform into several beings, while the Wolf-Eateress constantly shows up to thwart Nevena's attempts to live a normal existence.
Shot in Serbia and spoken in Macedonian, the film defies generic labels and combines Costumbrismo, horror and eroticism, plus allusions to possible local legends. The drama feeds on commonplaces of witchcraft tales, but at the same time it breaks them and creates its own legend. Zero goat, zero inverted pentagram, and other clichés. The Wolf-Eateress is a being capable of training in black magic with graphic and violent resources; maybe she wants to learn to be a mother, maybe she wants contact with a person or any emotion besides hate, but she does not know those feelings. In her quest for revenge, the Wolf-Eateress finds such contact in Nevena, but she herself pushes the young woman to become her decisive opposite. Or in the wildest dramatic sense, nobody not even herself knows what her final purpose is.
«You Won't Be Alone» is the first feature by Macedonian-born director Goran Stolevski, who emigrated at 12 to Australia, where he lives. The film moves to the rhythm of the seasons, with subtlety and tranquility. In fact, in an interview Stolevski confided that he did not find a Macedonian legend to serve as a reference, but he was strongly attracted to the fate of the cyclical agrarian societies that he visited and in the one where he filmed in Serbia, settlements on the verge of extinction, with populations under 65 years of age. According to Stolevski, terror is not a theme that identifies him. His interest is the drama of human relations, and this tendency is evident in «You Won't Be Alone», in which what most defines the work is the evolution of Nevena and her interactions with her nemesis, nature and the peasants.
In short, a great film. Weird, repellent, but intelligent and visually beautiful. Recommended.