DUTCH folk horror Heresy is set in a medieval village where a young woman is caught between her faith, fanatic townsfolk, and the dark forces lurking in the woods.
Directed by Didier Konings, this stunning film follows Frieda (Anneke Sluiters), a woman looked down upon, and considered useless by her suspicious yokel neighbours as she cannot conceive a child. With all the emotional depth and intense atmosphere of a Rembrandt painting, this one’s a mercurial fabled feminist delight that won’t be to everyone’s liking.
Slow-paced, attentive, and poetic, if it’s popcorn-swilling scares you’re after, you won’t find them here. Konings’ mystical film is an altogether more beautifully-crafted and hypnotic vision of primitive misogyny and hysterical fanaticism seen through a misty sorcerous haze.
The further the spiteful villagers turn their backs on the infertile Frieda, the more she looks to the forbidden forest to escape the religious patriarchy that ensnares her. In a tedious day-to-day existence filled with drudgery, ignorance and hypocrisy, she desperately desires to break free of the crude and inerudite ways that hold her down.
Her world is dank, dreary and claustrophobic. The deeper she explores the out-of-bounds woods, the more the veil is lifted on the oppressive ways of her husband and priest, and the true feminine power she possesses, is revealed to her by the otherworldly necromancers of this supernatural realm.
Now showing on Shudder, Heresy is a bewitching study of toxic masculinity, inflexible theological coercion and poses serious questions about why we still allow this to continue in a modern and, so-called, enlightened, society.
Frieda’s transformation is gradual, but powerful and equally glorious, as she opens her mind to wonder rather than keeping it closed by belief. A film that is as heartbreaking as it is rage-inducing, its thought-provoking message stays with you long after the final credits.
Truly spellbinding.
(4/5)