Bait

[wilder]

Directed by Mark Jenkin
Release Date - TBD

A celebration of cinema as a physical medium, this delirious whatsit from Cornish director Mark Jenkin is quite unlike any feature film you're likely to see this year. Martin (Edward Rowe) is a cove fisherman whose brother has started using their father's boat to shuttle tourists, soon causing latent familial tensions—not to mention antagonisms between tourists and locals—to explode in ever-surprising fashion. Shot on tactile hand-processed black-and-white 16mm and unfolding with the staccato rhythms of avant-garde cinema, Bait marks a singular achievement: an idiosyncratic work of social realism fascinatingly pitched somewhere between documentary and political melodrama.

Those of you who are aware of Mark Jenkin's short films know what they look like, the man shoots pieces of art through almost lost and forgotten means of delivery, here it's an old Bolex which is then hand processed using 16mm film. Jenkin's desire to do everything by hand really allows him the most control over his film while also controlling the quality to the most minute detail. Bait is almost as if Ken Loach & Alfred Hitchcock decided to take a vacation down to the fishing villages in south-west England and while they were there decided to make a documentary about the inner power struggles between the local fishermen and the ever growing tourist industry that seems to plague the quiet, desolate towns.

Unlike Jenkin's short films we lose the voiceover, usually performed by the director himself but instead we get to see how Jenkin can write for others, we see sharp, angry and venomous insults being hurled around as the fishermen fight back at even the idea of gentrification within their towns. But we also get to see this almost deadpan, robotic and sometimes lifeless delivery within the script, which, in this case (for me anyway) really added to the feeling of almost, i guess you could say lifelessness of the town itself, that's the appeal, it's a small, quiet, seaside town that the tourists are drawn to in a way that the locals don't want.

Bait feels like one of those lost films that the BFI dug up a few years back from the 1960's. Please let's not let this become lost. See this film, whether it be online or in a cinema, support one of the best working directors in the world. Berlinale strikes again, as you would expect.

With its stark black and white, muffled speech, and Eisenstein-esque montage, Bait exists in a time and place just about two neighborhoods removed from our reality. Even the way that Mark Jenkins, Bait's director, makes films, is one, two steps removed from typical--- processing miles and MILES of black and white negatives, recording ALL dialogue and sound in post (there are no mixers on set), only casting for faces...

[wilder]

UK Blu-ray from BFI on January 20, 2020