Bait | Little White Lies

Bait

28 Aug 2019 / Released: 30 Aug 2019

Words by Adam Woodward

Directed by Mark Jenkin

Starring Edward Rowe, Giles King, and Martin Ellis

Cracked astronaut helmet; reflective visor with distorted view of bearded man's face.
Cracked astronaut helmet; reflective visor with distorted view of bearded man's face.
2

Anticipation.

This one has a whiff of ‘film studies grad project’ about it.

4

Enjoyment.

Strange, spellbinding and timely. One of the most thrillingly original British films in years.

4

In Retrospect.

‘The view may be beautiful, but you can’t eat it.’

Director Mark Jenkin chronicles a dying way of life in this boldly experimental seaside drama.

With Robert Eggers’ The Lighthouse and now Bait, 2019 is quickly becoming a banner year for experimental seafaring cinema. This half-mast monochrome gem from writer/​director Mark Jenkin takes a somewhat trite and mundane subject – the gentrification of a Cornish fishing community – and spins it into a visually arresting expressionist mood piece that’s quite unlike anything you’ve seen before.

Filmed on location using a 16mm Bolex camera with black-and-white Kodak stock, it’s a flinty requiem for a rapidly vanishing way of life and a vital shot in the arm for British social realism.

Taciturn fisherman Martin (Edward Rowe) is quite literally rudderless, his brother Steven (Giles King) having turned their father’s trusty vessel into a pleasure boat for daytrippers. Compounding Martin’s malaise, the harbourside cottage he was raised in is now occupied by a couple of London yuppie types, who have splashed chintzy faux nautical décor all over the place. Been modernised,” Martin laments to Steven. Bloody ropes and chains – like a sex dungeon.”

As tensions between the locals and seasonal tourists simmer, Martin continues to ply his trade by casting a partially worn-out net from the shoreline and stashing what little cash he makes into a kitchen tin labelled boat’.

While the narrative is anchored in contemporary concerns about the loss of regional culture and traditions, the analogue equipment and old-school editing techniques Jenkin employs give the film a distinctly archaic look and feel. High-contrast cinematography, overdubbed dialogue and extreme close-ups combine to immersive effect, creating the impression of discovering a lost relic of early cinema that’s been freshly salvaged from an old shipwreck.

Jenkin owes a debt to the pioneering documentary work of John Grierson and Robert J Flaherty, but as an example of elegiac post-modern ethnography, Bait is entirely its own thing.

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