“You Won’t Be Alone” (MA) ***

THE provenance of Australian-born writer-director Goran Stolevski’s debut film is unusual, to say the least. 

Taking a pragmatic view of a community that the rest of the world has left behind as its violence, gore, nudity and sexual assault spreads across the screen, “You Won’t Be Alone” depicts 19th century Macedonia before revolution or machinery made agriculture a commercial venture operated for profit. 

Its unnamed characters have no names, just identified by their limited experiences.

An ancient witch makes a pact with a recently widowed mother not to drink the blood of her newborn babe Nevena on condition that she can take possession of the girl.

The mother tries to bargain with the witch, getting a 16-year extension, hoping to save her daughter somehow in the intervening years.

Raised inside a mountain, protected by Christian icons painted on the walls, Nevena grows up in contact with only her mother. 

When the witch reappears to claim her, she leaves the mountain with a more abusive maternal figure ready to interfere or interrupt her growth.

Inheriting her mother’s ability to shape-change, she begins to live one life after another, sometimes female (Noomi Rapace initially, Alice Englert eventually), sometimes male, sometimes (almost) old, sometimes young, learning the pleasures and pains, the gains and losses, the joys and grief inherent in the human condition.

“Will I like this film?” do I hear some readers asking? It’s not a film to like or dislike. It’s one to experience, to think about. And why not?

At Dendy