Bait. 2019. UK. Directed by Mark Jenkin. 99 min.
A celebration of cinema as a physical medium, this delirious whatsit from Cornish director Mark Jenkin is quite unlike any feature film you’re likely to see this year. Martin (Edward Rowe) is a cove fisherman whose brother has started using their father’s boat to shuttle tourists, soon causing latent familial tensions—not to mention antagonisms between tourists and locals—to explode in ever-surprising fashion. Shot on tactile hand-processed black-and-white 16mm and unfolding with the staccato rhythms of avant-garde cinema, Bait marks a singular achievement: an idiosyncratic work of social realism fascinatingly pitched somewhere between documentary and political melodrama. North American Premiere