BAIT (2019) FILM REVIEW

*****

15, 89 Mins

A grain-soaked technical triumph as much as a poetic portrait of communal and class tension against the sea-swept backdrop of Cornwall's cliffs.

In 2012, the victory of Michel Hazavanicius's 'The Artist' (2012) at the annual Academy awards provided physical proof that silent film still had life in the glitzy world of IMAX, 3D and digital cinema.

7 years later, the film is a one-hit wonder, but its notion of historically popular film-making surving against cinematic progression remains at the forefront of Director Mark Jenkin's ​'Bait' (2019). 

Shot on clockwork cameras in hand-made, black and white 16mm stock, 'Bait' is an earthly textural masterpiece unlike anything playing in cinemas for over 10 decades. Every glitch and scratch on its frames is a gorgeous, cine-literate homage to the earliest days of the moving image dating right back to Georges Melies's 'A Trip to the Moon' (1902).

A grain-soaked technical triumph as much as a poetic portrait of communal and class tension against the sea-swept backdrop of Cornwall's cliffs, it centres around a quaint Cornish fishing village that's clash between working-class trades and middle class gentrification is grittily encapsulated by a torturous relationship between two fisherman siblings.

Burly bear of a man Martin (Edward Rowe) scrapes a living selling lobster door-to-door while his brother Steve (Giles King) - to the former's frothing fury - succumbs to the tourist trade having re-purposed their late father's boat as a tour tripper for wealthy, stiff upper lip holidaymakers.

Tensions between locals and vacationists simmer when the brothers's family home is sold to posh Londoners Tim and Sandra Leigh (Simon Shepherd and Mary Woodvine) with interactions tittering on the brink of physical violence due to disagreements  about quayside parking and the deafening noise of early morning sailing.

Seeking solace, Martin begins a relationship with fiesty bartender Wenna (Chloe Endean) who shares his penchant for aggressively breaking the rules. Meanwhile the Leigh couple's daughter Katie (Georgia Ellery) takes a fancy for Steve's handsome son Neil (Isaac Woodvine) much to the horror of her brother Hugo (Jowan Jacobs)...

In this digital day and age, the fact that a film as dated, roughened and enclosed as this provides such a sweeping sensory experience is beyond phenomenal with every grain of sand crunching beneath feet and wave crashing against rocks soaking viewers in a maelstrom of absorptive, three-dimensional texture.

100% of the credit for the film's visual audacity must go to Director Jenkin who truly establishes himself as one of the most exciting film-makers on the scene today with his mastery of montage. There are shots here worthy of Sergei Eisentein's 'Battleship Potemkin' (1925) in their granular beauty as the camera flickers between blink-and you'll-miss it images of fishing nets used as cheap decorations juxtaposed against fridges stacked full of champagne that remind audiences of the sobering price paid for Cornwall's growing tourism industry.

Most impressive, however, is 'Bait's auditorial prowess. It's a once-in a-lifetime oddity filmed essentially as a silent movie with dialogue, music and sound effects added in post-production that offer a bizarre soundscape akin to a foreign-language picture dubbed in English and lending the film an off-kilter, dream-like quality. Adding to the surreal expressionism, the hypnotic score spectacularly downplays its use of analogue synths to evoke an unmistakable aura of idyllicism that teases unseen horrors lurking beneath the surface. A sensation of small town paranoia that would make even David Lynch's skin crawl!

Every silent movie needs a silent movie star and real-life fisherman and youtube star Edward "Kernow King" Rowe more than fits every facial tic and body gesture of the bill. The acting newcomer muscularly mixes hulking physicality with flashes of minute vulnerability to Chaplin-esque effect in a star-making performance that deserves to light up every awards ceremony.

For such an impeccable technical triumph, its easy to forget what a deeply personal and political film this is; rooted in Cornish past, present and possible future yet stretching far further than the cliffs of Kernow in its sobering realisation of traditional lifestyles increasingly under threat. It's about as far away from the swooning shores of 'Poldark' (2015-2019) as you can get!

"You didn't have to sell us this house" insists London incomer Sandra during an unbearably tense confrontation with our bearded central protagonist. "Didn't we?" Martin grunts in a poignant response that speaks volumes for fishermen increasingly facing giving up their homes as a direct result of gentrification.

Yet 'Bait' never once feels preachy in its politics. This is a timeless film with a universal message. One that's battle ground of old vs. new applies to the medium of cinema itself and has the potential to redefine its lanscape; suggesting that the original formats - whether they be silent cinema or 16mm stock - do not need to be relics of the past, but can proudly co-exist alongside technological advancements.

Whether it catches the widest possible audience remains to be seen, but it will have been a year from the heavens if I am to see a better film than this come the end of 2019...

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