Niko Ramses’s review published on Letterboxd:
For all of his greatest strengths as a director, whether it be crafting period-accurate dialogue, sets, and costumes, or his ability to reveal so much about his characters and the world they inhabit through minimal dialogue and an abundance of visual storytelling, perhaps what Robert Eggers does best is capture a feeling of impermeable dread.
Eggers achieves this through his depictions of religion and the role it plays in the interpersonal and psychological relationships between the film’s characters. While I’m sure many have been acquainted with the reading of The VVitch which likens each member of the family to one of the Seven Deadly Sins (which I encourage you to check out if you’re unfamiliar with it because it’s a very good analysis), I believe that there’s more at play with what Eggers seeks to depict with religion in his film.
What Eggers presents in The VVitch is a cautionary tale towards puritanical modes of religion, where we see that those who present themselves as the most devout and who stringently abide by the rules they set for themselves are doomed to fall victim to the sins that they try to repent (and to the evils that come about because of this). We see this from the moment the family leaves their New England settlement and heads into the wilderness. Their anger, distrust, and fears (of both their new environment and towards each other) form the central conflict of the narrative. The God-fearing nature of the characters in turn leaves them unable to live up to the standards they place upon themselves in an unending cycle of sinning, repenting, and punishment. The Witch of the Woods, while certainly real as evidenced by the events of the film, is thus the manifestation of their own guilt and the temptations that arise from, once again, being unable to live up to these religious standards.
And in case anyone was still wondering, I am still deeply afraid of farm animals (especially goats) because of Robert Eggers. Despite how much I adore his filmography, I will never forgive him for that…I will never be able to visit a farm again and I only have this man to blame for that.
A link to my previous review.
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