You Won’t Be Alone: Folklore-Based Arthouse Horror a Parable for Modern Times
By Karen Gordon
Rating: B+
Shapeshifting, murder, possession, gender fluidity and the lowly lot of women are all part of the arthouse horror You Won’t Be Alone, the impressive debut feature film by Macedonian-Australian writer/director Goran Stolevski.
In an isolated mountain village in 19th century Macedonia, people whisper about a shapeshifting witch called Old Maid Maria (Anamaria Marinca), who roams the countryside feeding on blood and terrorizing villagers who encounter her.
Maria comes for the newborn daughter of a peasant woman, who strikes a deal with the witch: She’ll keep the daughter until she’s 16, so she can know the joys of motherhood, and then hand her over. The deal is made, but the mother tries to trick the witch. She takes the infant to a remote cave, raising her there away from everyone and everything. But it’s to no avail.
Nevena (Sara Klimoska) turns 16 and Maria returns to claim her. Nevena — who has been deprived of company and spent most of her life in the cave — is almost feral. Maria transforms her into a witch and leads her through the countryside, almost wordlessly teaching her charge about her new life.
Nevena has never experienced the world and is enraptured by everything. But her naïveté irritates Maria, who abandons her in the woods. Left alone, Nevena stumbles through the countryside trying to make her way.
She finds shelter in a barn, but startles a woman named Bosilka (Noomi Rapace) accidentally killing her. Recalling something she saw Maria do, Nevena shapeshifts into the body of her victim, although in this borrowed body she can’t speak.
Suddenly, the once-isolated girl is part of a community, and a family. It’s a difficult life, especially for women who are often treated brutally by the men in the village. Yet for the first time she experiences an ordinary, stable and, for her, a fuller life. It fills her with curiosity.
Ultimately Nevena abandons Bosilka, moving on to take on the bodies of others, including a handsome young man, and then a young girl.
Through the lives of the people she’s inhabiting, Nevena moves from an observer of life to a participant fully experiencing the life she’s borrowed. She is, of course, always aware of her origins and what lives inside of her, and as her attachment to her current life gets deeper, Old Maid Maria shows up, wordlessly threatening cruelty.
Stolevski based the film in folklore and legends from his native Macedonia. But he’s after more than just a folk tale or a horror movie, albeit an artful one.
The film is layered with ideas about life that resonate down to our time. The role of women and mothers in society is an obvious one, but there are other, more broadly philosophical themes. The tone, at times, is reminiscent of films by Terrence Malick, enhanced by the camera work of director of photography Matthew Chuang.
Up until now, Stolevski has focused on short films set in the modern world and directing some episodic television in Australia. With this unusual story, with its haunting themes, the assured and accomplished You Won’t Be Alone marks the debut of an exciting new voice in feature films.
You Won’t Be Alone. Written and directed by Goran Stolevski. Starring Noomi Rapace, Sara Klimoska, and Anamaria Marcina. In theatres April 1.