31 Days of Hell: Hold the Dark (2018)

Jeremy Saulnier's filmography is akin to taking a wrong turn into a dingy back alley, populated by iconoclast vagrants and unthinkable, yet familiar villainy.  His stories explore complex themes of vengeance and mortality, characterized by abrupt violence and a humorous embrace of fatalism.  His fourth offering, Hold the Dark, is an existential foray into the horrors of humanity.  Dappled with the director's patented flourishes, Dark is an unremittingly bleak story that poses more questions than answers.  On the surface, this is a quasi-crime thriller, filled with questionable personas who all have secrets and regrets that threaten to dissolve the illusion of civility that surrounds them.  Beneath the mundane veneer interwoven with Native American mythology and supernatural symbolism, is a challenging dissertation on the relationship between civility and animalistic predilections that defines mankind's place within Mother Nature's empire. 

A solitary wildlife expert is summoned to a remote Alaskan village to hunt and kill a pack of wolves that is preying on children.  Soon after his arrival, the hunter is drawn into series of events in which the concepts of spiritual corruption and expiation are analyzed through the conflict of human morality and primal instinct.  Longtime collaborator Macon Blair's script deviates slightly from William Giraldi's novel leaving more for the viewer to decide for themselves.  This is perhaps the film's greatest attribute or lethal flaw.  Hold the Dark exists on several levels, each of which leaves vast room for personal interpretation.  The main narrative, involving Jeffrey Wright's Russell Core is slowly weaved through the frozen heart of the story with deliberation.  Isolation is of import.  Russell, living within polite civilization is withdrawn and estranged from his family.  Vernon (Alexander Skarsgard) and Medora (Riley Keough) are isolated not only by their physical locations, but by their collective sins.  The intersection of these three souls is paramount to Saulnier's presentation.  Wright's Russell is soft spoken and patient, bearing the sorrow of thousand souls within him.  He is a modern-day confessor who has come to offer deliverance to a modern-day coven.  Keough, in one of the best performances of her career is the center of the trio.  Her motivations are shrouded with guilt and regret, and yet there is a cold reconciliation that lies behind her penetrating gaze.  There is a scene within the first few minutes between her and Wright that is not only unsettling, it is a harrowing reminder of their exceptional talent.  

Rounding out the cast is Alexander Skarsgard as the murderous Vernon.  Perhaps the most enigmatic element of the story, his introduction and subsequent arc are filled with the most jarring elements of the story.  Saulnier is a director who respects violence.  While some may consider the gore over the top, the way it is handled is almost the inverse.  Deaths are often abrupt and without mercy, humanizing victims in unexpected and utterly uncomfortable ways that attaches the act of killing to the viewer's subconscious.  This is the manner in which Saulnier is able to build towards an ambiguous ending that feels earned rather than cheated.  Skarsgard’s place within this ecosystem of philosophical violence is essential, showing the viewer two opposing forces that are at play, not only in the Alaskan wilderness, but in the very soul of the human race.

Technically, Hold the Dark is one of the most proficient films of the year.  Magnus Nordenhof Jonck's cinematography has a bruised quality that is the perfect accentuation of the subdued and dangerous world that slowly envelopes the audience.  There is a gunfight that separates the halves of the film that is a flawless example of filmmaking.  In a film such as this, death is not a plot device nor a popcorn experience, it is a looming eventuality and the manner in which Saulnier and his crew give it life via horrific gunshot wounds and desperate, near suicidal measures is poetic.  

Ultimately, this is a film that will divide audiences.  Its glacial pace and absolute refusal to explain itself will disappoint anyone looking for a clear-cut story about good versus evil.  However, any viewers who take pleasure in labyrinthine suppositions on the nature of humanity will find much to unpack.  The dark in this tale is the unthinkable capabilities of the human race.  Underneath social mores and theological doctrines lies base, animalistic behaviors.  While some choose to embrace them, eschewing any sense of belonging and attachment, others cling to their families, communities, and personal ideals for respite from the dark.  In Saulnier's latest, the darkness is very real, and like the wolves who are plaguing his protagonist, it is waiting just beyond the door of sanity to devour any who tread outside.  

--Kyle Jonathan