FANTASTIC FEST 2023 - "A GUIDE TO BECOMING AN ELM TREE" IS A SOMBER AND SLOW-BURN TAKE ON HORROR
It’s one of the most wonderful times of the year for genre festival fans, and MACABRE DAILY is your source for Fantastic Fest 2023 coverage! This year, a ghastly selection of our staff have been invited to participate in a series of virtual screenings premiering at Fantastic Fest in Austin, TX. This year’s selection of films ranges from the darkly comic to the dreadfully dire and all things fantastic in between. Check out the review below for A Guide To Becoming An Elm Tree!
WHAT’S IT ABOUT?
Padraig is a lonely and grief-stricken man who seeks the help of a mysterious carpenter named John, to help him build a coffin for his already dead and buried wife.
HOW IS IT?
“Avant-garde” is defined as “new and unusual or experimental ideas, especially in the arts, or the people introducing them”. With respect to A Guide to Becoming an Elm Tree (“Elm Tree” for brevity’s sake), I’d say the avant-garde term applies more to the “unusual” side of things rather than “new” or “experimental”. Like so many folk horror films, Elm Tre is layered with metaphors both visual and narrative that string you along in a dreamlike monochromatic haze. While that haze can be mystifying and beautiful, it also tests the viewer's patience more so than your average slow-burner.
Elm Tree is about grief and the lengths to which we will go to not let go. It is a theme very familiar to the horror genre and is part and parcel with this past decade's trend for making the actualities of life the real menace and not the supernatural proxies used to distract us. At the center of this story are two characters who take up the majority of the run time. One is a grief-stricken widower (Pradraig), and the other (John) is a curmudgeonly craftsman who is finely attuned to the history and mythology of the land. They are both somber characters, albeit portrayed in vastly different ways with Padraig being more morose while John is more confident in his stoicism. This interplay of “master and apprentice” serves as the canvas for which this story about loss and moving on plays out, and it is a testament to the actors here for carrying the film’s pacing in the face of sparse dialogue and mostly silent and sullen glances. Their relationship is one we have seen before; a wise person hoping to impart their special brand of wisdom to a seemingly receptive mind. In this way Elm Tree doesn’t offer up much in the way of “newness”, but it does capture and keep your attention in a mostly meditative way with lush views of the Irish countryside and the moody score that adorns the soundscape.
When it comes to slow-burn stories, there is always a threshold to which you can delay the tension before it starts to feel noticeable. Slow-burn films are the “edging” of cinema in that they test your patience to enhance the delayed gratification you get from the usually audacious ending. In fact, the most successful slow-burn horror films understand that you must meet the muted elements of the first two acts with something far grander and usually unexpected in the final act. This is where Elm Tree struggles. There is a moment mid-way through the third act where John all but spells out what is going on to Pradraig, but it really feels like John is talking to us, not the character. This kind of exposition normally wouldn’t be required, and yet, the entire third act is largely an explainer to remove the ambiguity of the first two-thirds of the film. Generally speaking, exposition isn’t a major issue, but in this case, if there were more stakes at play in the film it may have helped to increase the payoff at the end. This is not to say the ending is “bad” so much as it is underwhelming and overdone, but alas, that shouldn’t deter from the deeply personal story being told here. It just isn’t one that will resonate with everyone equally.
LAST RITES
A Guide to Becoming an Elm Tree is a melancholy and meditative film about life, death, and grief that unfolds in a visually appealing, albeit somewhat meandering way. Those who enjoy the more subdued and philosophical approaches to the horror genre will find a lot to love, while others may have a hard time with the slow-burn approach to storytelling.
THE GORY DETAILS
Directed By
Written By
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Where can you watch it?
A Guide To Becoming An Elm Tree played at FANTASTIC FEST 2023.
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