|
Afran (Simon Armstrong) is an elderly, mysterious farmer who goes
around the Welsh countryside collecting dead animals for his own needs -
which might be weird, but figuring he doesn't harm the animals only picks
them up when he finds them dead it's harmless enough for anyone but the
collector (Ali Cook) from the local abattoir who wants the animal bodies
for his own needs, to sell them for profit even if they're not his. So
eventually he calls a health inspector (Ian Kelly) to shut down his
operations, and sure enough the inspector is on the collector's side in
exchange for a share of the profit they're hoping to make from taking in
Afran's dead animals - but Afran still has an (otherworldly) ace up his
sleeve ... One word of warning up front: If the pure sight of
animal cadavers offends you, you should probably not watch this movie. But
that said, this movie does not only not do anything to in any way
desecrate these dead bodies (let alone use them for spectacle), it on top
of that is really about respect towards animals, up to the poin where one
of Afran's incantations is actually a recitation of the five key rights of
animals according to the UN in Welsh - plus the finale (which I won't give
away) is really one of the most humane I've seen in an eerie film like
this. Putting the animal cadavers aside for a moment, The Cunning Man
is a rather powerful movie that might not have much to offer in terms of
spectacle but thrives in eeriness and atmosphere, puts the mysterious and
the macabre into a fresh context, and uses its deliberately slow pace to
properly build up to its finale. Surely a movie you won't forget any
time soon - and for all the right reasons, too.
|