Fest Track On Sirk TV Film Review: IN THE EARTH [Sundance Film Festival 2021 - Virtual]

Fear is a dichotomy of nature and ritual, buried in the ground that has been around a billion years before us. The texture of "In The Earth" [Premieres] (Distributor: Neon) reflects this in an undeniable way in creating a parallel between primal and logical reasoning. The immediate construct of the film is buried in a similar foreboding of a disease that is ravaging the country the characters are in. The film itself was conceived of, shot (over the summer of 2020) and finished during the current pandemic. The main character is seemingly on a quest towards a forest, drawn to it for differing reasons. The inherent structure of the film is that no one truly except one is giving the true reason why they are there. There is a mythology of a long standing curse or creature in the woods which is corroborated by a book that happens to be in the hands of a would-be authority. When two researchers go out in the woods to learn more, the paths are diverged by, at first, random circumstances and then rituals. The set up has the playings of a horror movie but it subverts this to become something that, in many ways, can only be described as psychedelic. Director Ben Wheatley undeniably has a vision but it contains Pollock overtones of detachment with a sense of fury. The film tries to make another turn at science which undeniably can go wrong as well well. The build of the sound and visual is used as a method of communication in a way which is why parts of the film have a sort of rave "Close Encounters" vibe as communications are attempted. But it is in the last say 20 minutes it really ratchets up. The sensibility of it is not as clear nor a meaning beyond the inherent existential reflections of the characters but the build of them is beautiful in a very riveting way that both reflects nature and chaos, control and loss of freedom. This, of course, can be a motif of "In The Earth" because as much as technology has brought us far, it is still the aspect of a virus (aka nature) that can bring modern society down per se. And that is the irony, "In The Earth", in a roundabout way under a loose genre construct is able to accomplish that, even in the hope of its final words. B

By Tim Wassberg