Had it not felt so redundant, I could almost hear the echoes of Elton John's 'Circle of Life' across the gaping void of barren, hopeless inevitability that is presented to us here. A study of humanity, albeit via a very focused lens, certainly opens the eyes of those willing to sit a while and see.
It's under two hours, but if we're honest, feels much, much longer, as if your own life is passing through the camera. The folk horror connotation is rarely more than that and as such, unlikely to shock anyone, apart from those that imagine that those featured really should know better than to hold a belief in the threat that if removed, would leave the project without the overarching human sense of fear imbibed into almost every scene.
The whole picture relies on upon it and it cast such a ethereal shadow on the film that you wonder what this would have been without it. It's like watching 'It Follows' when you never see the pursuers and despite the languid pace, they somehow never seem to catch up with you, or potentially have changed their minds altogether and have decided to follow someone else, yet failed to let you know.
Some viewers will absolutely love every last minute of this beautifully shot experience. purported to be 19th century Macedonia, but could be anywhere rural, wild and unforgiving for the time. The witchcraft featured here was prevalent in many places, but never so subtly delivered by anyone else. Villages in Macedonia like this do still exist and whilst the myths surrounding the story here are more the imagination of Stolevski himself, the reality is just as mundane and eye-wateringly cinematographic.
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