BeyondFest 2024 Review: SHADOWLAND, Compelling, Infuriating, And Sobering

In 2021 Finnish filmmaker and documentarian Otso Tiainen, together with their co-writer Kalle Kinnunen, set out to Montségur, France, a commune nestled in the French Pyreneese mountains and a homestead for practitioners of the occult. Initially filming started out as a documentary about filmmaker and occultist Richard Stanley and their life in what they call "The Zone." However, part way through the project a shocking allegation of past domestic abuse was made against Stanley. Not only did the documentarians need to rethink what they do with this revelation but so did other residents of Montségur who had come to know Stanley as one of the commune’s key spiritual leaders. 

 

Shadowland starts out as a continuation, of sorts, of Stanley’s own documentary about the region, a sort of companion piece to Stanley’s 2013 documentary L’ Autre Monde (The Outer World) and his encounter with The White Lady of Montségur. The first half of Shadowland branches out to explore more of the area’s practitioners, and some of the services honoring the Cathars 

 

We are reintroduced to Uraine, you know, the sorcerer that appeared in L’ Autre Monde and who went to battle for Richard against another sorcerer when they were filming the segment The Mother of Toads for the anthology The Theatre Bizarre. They passed away while filming so they only appear briefly. Sad. What a strange, little man they were. 

 

Side note: We admit to feeling a kind of rush when we saw a shot of one of the dolls on the shelves of Uraine’s modest abode. At least it was a doll just like the one that Stanley carried around with him when walking the streets of this rural town in Western Mexico, that first time we went to a film festival there. He called it his personal daemon. Just that single shot alone brought up a lot of great memories of that trip overall, meeting up with folks from the festival circuit and making new friendships that have lasted since then. Oh, the looks on people’s faces when they spied that doll in Stanley’s hands as we walked through town. That would be the first of many run-ins with Stanley at that festival in particular and on the rest of the circuit throughout the years. 

 

There are new subjects in this new doc. We meet the priestess Anaiya, a kindly, sweet natured woman who fled their own life of domestic abuse to settle in Montségur and to minister to other women. Opposite to her there is the “chaos magician” Iranon, a young Frenchman who explodes with occult practice, strangely appearing in a new shelter or home every time the doc returns to him. Both of their connections to Stanley are explored, their style of worship and practice highlighted, and most importantly their reactions to the news when the first allegation became public are recorded. 

 

Shadowland started out as an exploration of the Montségur region and the people who live there, who freely practice their occult and religious beliefs. Stanley was on board as the resident expert, your boots on the ground tour guide. There are many shots of him wandering the grounds of the Château de Montségur where they claim they saw the Lady in White, lights dancing off of the stone walls to add a mystical aura to them. Likewise, we watch Anaiya’s warm and peaceful practices at work, in rooms of soft white hues, or out in the green lushness of Nature. Counter to that we also get to watch some of Iranon's steadily louder and more explosive rituals. They almost always take place in the raw Earth, with dirt floors and stone walls, these weirdly fascinating little enclaves dug out of the hillsides. Other times he’s performing rituals in darkened rooms with the curtains drawn closed. Most times he’s armed himself with a sword, sometimes it’s on fucking fire! They are glaring but engaging contrasts.

 

But part way through filming the story as intended, in the Spring of 2021, Stanley’s former partner Scarlett Amaris wrote the blog post "777 - Truth Will Out." After the allegation surfaced choices were made by the filmmakers to divert their attention to the fallout. That, and Stanley became so preoccupied with it that it was the only material that he was giving Tiainen and Kinnunen. 

 

Sadly and predictably, Stanley went on the offensive, using phrases like "witch hunt led by witches" and "hysterical women," and then claiming at the end of this particular rant that "surrounding the central group of women are a number of political and corporate powers, all of whom have massive vested interests in what is going on here in the, in the mountains." That’s all in the transcript. Also, make a mental note. He said "women." Just wait until you read the postscript/epilogue!

 

Then there were the reactions by the two other persons in focus, Anaiya and Iranon. These are not going to go where you expect them to, at first. As the filmmakers follow Stanley to court some in the community attempt to help Stanley cleanse and restore themselves --- prompting us to shake our fists at the screen --- while others have already started to close their doors on him. 

 

It is only after an article was published in The Daily Beast in 2023, about the breadth of the allegations, that further considerations had to be made by those in focus and the new direction of the doc comes through more clearly. Shadowland transitioned from further exploration of this mystical region of Montségur into a mediation on false prophets and the impact it leaves on the community around them. 

 

When we’ve come across creatives in the past who’ve done irreconcilable things, some have adopted the terminology that their works have been ‘stained’ by their actions. Does the same hold for places? France was already a safe place for one filmmaker who fled U.S. prosecution in the '70s. The country has fared well despite that. What of a smaller tight-knit community though? Is the Montségur region still truly transformative or have they been irrevocably manipulated by a false prophet? How disruptive to these spiritual processes is the presence of Stanley and how much longer will that be tolerated? We can only wait and see.