"The Batman" may be getting all the attention of filmgoers at the moment, but if you want to check out a fresh new voice in cinema head over to AppleTV and stream "The Long Walk."
Geographically and cinematically at the other end of the spectrum from "The Batman" is Mattie Do’s "The Long Walk."
On one level, it is a horror tale and horrific things definitely happen. But it is not what you might expect from a horror film. It’s a genre-bending mix of horror, science fiction and the supernatural.
We find an old man on a dusty road between his isolated farm and the nearby rural village. He is in the company of a silent woman that we begin to suspect is a spirit. There is also a young boy whose mother, like the old man's, suffers a terminal illness. There is a connection between the two but that is part of the journey and the discovery of this remarkable and exquisite film.
Do, who appears as herself in "Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched: A History of Folk Horror," weaves elements of folk horror into her film to give it a unique cultural flavor. She gives us a film that is deeply intimate in its portrayal of characters yet far-reaching in terms of its social commentary about colonization, gender politics, family dynamics and class. It is not a film that you can watch passively. It is a film that you must actually pay attention to in order to make sense of the complex and clever narrative structure.
Some films leave you baffled because the filmmakers fail to provide you with all the information you need to make sense of a complicated story. At the end of "The Long Walk," I felt uncertain about some elements but only because Do gives the film so many layers that you want to go back and watch it again.
"The Long Walk" both challenges and rewards viewers, and that is a rare thing.
