Call of the Earth: Ecocriticism Through the Non-Human Agency in M. Jenkin’s “Enys Men”

Abstract

Based on the “vegetal turn” in film studies and posthuman philosophy, the article explores how experimental cinema can be a cultural mediator of vegetal forms of life. Posthumanist philosophy draws inspiration from cinema’s portrayal of both imaginary and real non-human entities as subjects and cohabitants on Earth. As subjects, these non-human entities are challenging generally accepted ideas about the principles of cognition, as well as our understanding of the causes and consequences of problems such as climate warming, Holocene extinction, and depletion of natural resources. The experimental film reveals connections between human and non-human agents through its unique film language and cinema ontology. The study examines how the film Enys Men (2022), directed by M. Jenkin, employs critical anthropomorphism to depict closely intertwined symbiotic relationships between all human and non-human agents, where memory as an embodied property connects various types of experience. In the film, access to awareness of the boundaries of life and death is challenged by non-human subjects such as lichens and Earth.

Keywords

• posthumanism
• vegetal turn
• experimental cinema
• ecocriticism