Fréwaka
The roots of sadness running deep, Siúbhán and her Ukranian girlfriend Mila have to clear out the house of Shoo’s mother, a lonely woman of twisted foot who sang mournful dirges even as she hanged herself, their relationship already damaged by the abuse Shoo suffered as a child, now having to leave Mila to get on with it when work summons her to assist with an elderly recluse who has suffered a stroke.
Nic Giolla Bhríde living alone in a dilapidated rural farmhouse beyond the fairy tree, her behaviour confirms the suspicion in her medical notes that she may be in the early stages of dementia, eventually allowing Shoo to use the diminutive Peig but initially wary and hostile, forcing Shoo to break a window to get in to the house when she refused to open the door, superstitious and afraid and obsessed with death and the past.
Primarily a two-hander between Clare Monnelly and Bríd Ní Neachtain as the two isolated women, the damaged carer Shoo and the broken but unrepentant widow Peig whose husband also killed himself, Fréwaka was shot in County Louth’s Cooley Peninsula, beautiful but remote, the locals mocking and warning Shoo off, dismissive of the eccentric old woman who is understandably fearful of strangers.
Written and directed by The Devil’s Doorway’s Aislinn Clarke, the title is a corruption of the Irish word for roots, fréamhach, Peig protecting herself through isolation while Shoo builds walls, refusing to allow herself to grieve for her mother or feel anything, accustomed to difficult situations and sanguine in her dealings with Peig but unable to ignore the parallels in their lives, traumatised women brought up to care for others and sacrifice their own wants, bound by the circumstances in which they were born.
The cluttered house filled with many rooms, at the end of the hall is the locked red door to the cellar, Peig believing that there is another house beneath hers, Shoo in turn becoming haunted by nightmares and noises in the dark, a pariah for her association with Peig even though the villagers have their own strange habits, shops closed and the streets deserted in preparation for the masked festival which bookends the film, Peig covering mirrors but the present reflecting her own wedding day in 1973.
Consciously echoing The Wicker Man with aspects both thematic and visual, Fréwaka engages through the performances but becomes increasingly abstract as it progresses to the final act, more interesting as an examination of a woman in mourning for a past she cannot change, a mother who was always beyond help and the better life unlived than the twisted branches and deep roots of folk horror whose eerie spaces it shares.
Fréwaka will be available on Shudder from Friday 25th April
