The Witch

Rating: 9/10 (28 April 2020)

We see the witch in the second scene of the film. She cuts a baby into pieces and rubs its blood on her naked body. You can see this isn't one of those 'is there/isn't there? (yes, there always is)' kind of horror films. "The Witch" sacrifices faint surprise for the sake of drama, and is all the better for it.
The slaughtered victim was the youngest member of a puritan family in seventeenth century New England. Father William (Ralph Ineson) has been banished from the Plymouth Colony after a religious dispute, and settled in exile with his wife (Kate Dickie) and five children at the edge of a dark forest.
The film's focus is their oldest daughter, Tomasin (Anya Taylor-Joy), who is entering a sinful puberty. The girl's position within the family is precarious. Her father loves her; her mother does not; her siblings are about split even. The fact that she was looking after the baby when it disappeared does not improve her standing. The more she is driven into a corner, the harder she struggles, slowly becoming the family's black sheep (or should I say 'black goat'?).
The key to "The Witch"'s success lies in its characters. More specifically: in the fact that they are not bad people. They are flawed. William is proud; both he and his son Caleb (Harvey Scrimshaw) are liars; Katherine is psychotic; and the young twins are monsters, as children of that age tend to be. But as a family, they do try to live as best they can. You are not dying for these people to meet their end. Instead, you gaze in despair as their world falls apart.
Much of the credit goes to Robert Eggers' work as writer and director. I am spoiled with choice for examples of the amazing skill he displays. One from the beginning: William is talking with his son, Caleb. He is sure a wolf took his baby. As he talks, he picks up a corncob, black with rot. 'We must catch our food if we cannot grow it.'
Amazing how much character, situation, and plot can be glanced from eleven syllables. And sometimes we don't even need the words. Pay attention to the cinematography, how Caleb's looks at Tomasin (in a POV shot) always run over her chest. One small camera movement illustrates the challenges of growing up in such strict circumstances better than any soliloquy.
As you may by now suspect, "The Witch" is more of a character drama than a horror film, its story bearing a closer resemblance to "Through a Glass Darkly" than to "The Shining". But this is the kind of drama that creeps under your skin -- indeed, very much like an Ingmar Bergman film. More and more, witchery begins to feel like a liberation rather than an expression of the darkness that lies within humans.
It just goes to show what careful context brings to a story. The little girl from "The Exorcist" can use all foul words known to man without being as disturbing as a puritan boy shouting 'Sin! Sin! Sin!' All because Robert Eggers took fifty witchless minutes to build his characters and their world.
That "The Witch" was his first feature film remains hard to believe. In both writing and directing he shows an understanding of his craft that many filmmakers can't hope to reach in a lifetime. One wonders whether he signed some black book himself.