Bait (Mark Jenkin, 2019) (Patreon)

Hey, remember when Guy Maddin delivered a full-on brother vs. brother melodrama in just under seven minutes?

That was awesome.

Now, I don't mention Maddin (or The Heart of the World) lightly, although given the Oedipal business undergirding Bait, Careful might be a better point of comparison. But as Mike has explained (and I can't really add to much to his analysis), Jenkin is not making a pastiche or trying to ironically wink at an earlier form of cinema. In fact, Bait, texturally speaking, has much more in common with the recent feature films of Ben Rivers (especially Two Years at Sea), with its hand-developed 16mm, complete with end flares, scratches, and bursts into negative. 

But what to make of the editing style, which, as Mike points out, is so Eisensteinian as to resemble student filmmaking -- that is, a precociousness that betrays its naivety by simply trying too hard? If it weren't for the other formal signifiers, or that extremely elegant cross-talk conversation scene in the pub, we'd be left to wonder if Jenkin was an unsophisticated, rural savant along the lines of Tennessee's Phil Chambliss or Vermont's John O'Brien. Jenkin may not be winking, exactly, but he's certainly sending up a number of flare to indicate he knows what he's doing.

In fact, at times the rhythm and performances recalled Bill Douglas's work, which is not something one sees very often. However, where Douglas augmented his stilted acting and puzzle-lock editing style with the open space of narrative ellipses, to generate an overall impression of formal experimentation with a story bubbling up through the joins. Jenkin, on the other hand, plods rather doggedly through his tale of gentrification vs. the old ways, and generations gradually losing touch with what matters, and frankly it isn't very interesting. Bait was a long 90 minutes. Jenkin is clearly a talent, but I don't think his mojo is working just yet.