The Pearl Comb
A visit to a small farmhouse under grey skies on the coast of Cornwall is not what Doctor Gregory Lutey desires, but the necessity of visiting Betty Lutey fell to him as they are distantly related, he now obliged to question her about the stories circulating which have made their way to the ears of his associates who are concerned that she is presenting herself to the villagers as a healer, alleged to have cured a young boy of tuberculosis.
Betty a composed woman, she demurs, saying the incident was a misunderstanding, that it was in fact a hex upon the boy which she dispelled, a response which does not reassure her visitor, her expansion of the tale only vexing him more as she tells of her late husband’s encounter a decade before with a mermaid who gave him the gift of healing as thanks for helping her back to the sea, passed from him to her along with the pearl comb.
Set in 1893 but recounting the events over the previous years which have brought this visitor to the door of Betty (Highlander’s Beatie Edney), The Pearl Comb is a short film written and directed by Ali Cook who also appears as the soft-spoken but slightly condescending Gregory Lutey, trying to make sense of the truth behind the story which he regards as the nonsense of country folk, with Simon Armstrong as Lutey and Clara Paget as the siren on the rocks by the rolling waves, golden hair falling to her waist below which her flesh shifts to silver scales.
A sumptuously created period piece of the magical and the mundane, contrasting the quiet life of a middle-aged widow, eccentricities notwithstanding, with the wonder of life under the oceans, the shore and the moonlight the shifting border between the two, as unsteady as promises made on a wave or the flick of a powerful tail, Occam’s razor sharp and cutting both ways as The Pearl Comb questions whether a woman of learning is more frightening and dangerous than a witch, to her community or to the patriarchal establishment.
Following its UK premiere at FrightFest, The Pearl Comb will screen at the Cleveland International Film Festival on Friday 4th April and it will then be available on CIFF Streams from Sunday 6th to Sunday 13th April
