I am far from the first cinephile to point this out, but there is no substitute for print film when it comes to conveying texture. The crisp quality of digital may give clarity, but there is a depth to a print that can convey so much for the senses not directly engaged with when watching a film. Though sound quality applies to any film, and it's something every aspiring filmmaker should know: you can get away with visual quality that is less than stellar, but poor sound quality will ruin a film.
Luckily, there are no such troubles with this film. Mark Jenkin, with his previous features, Bait and Enys Men, showcases not only how the means of a film is part of the story, but how the particular means of print film, as well as the time and care invested in post-production sound, make all the difference, whether the film be a social realist drama or an experimental horror. Now, he blends these two genres in his third feature, Rose of Nevada.
The scene is familiar to those who have seen Jenkin's previous films: a small fishing village in Cornwall. Or it might be more accurate to say, a former fishing village. It seems not much fishing happens anymore. The high street feels deserted: the former post office is now a food bank, and the pub has only one customer. Nick (George Mackay) is trying to fix a hole in the roof over the kitchen, to protect his family from the rain, while his wife tends to the neighbour Mrs. Richards (Mary Woodvine). It seems she's been in an almost catatonic state since her son committed suicide years ago, after leaving a fishing boat one man short, a boat which then was lost, and the son blamed himself. But something makes her say he is coming home. About the same moment, that boat, Rose of Nevada, lost to sea 30 years ago, has made its way back to the local wharf.
The boat's owner (Edward Rowe) decides to send it out to sea again, and a mysterious skipper (Francis Magee) makes an oddly perfectly-timed appearance to man the fishing trips. But they need two crew: Liam (Callum Turner) is a homeless wandered, definitely not from Cornwall but needing money and a pillow on which to rest his head, so he'll sign up for anything. Nick takes on the job to pay for the roof repair, though he's reluctant to leave his wife and daughter, who see him off at the dock, as all good fishers' spouses do. The skipper teaches the two men the skills: straightforward but physically demanding, and onto the sea they go.
Liam and Nick form the kind of camaraderie that comes from shared hard labour, but this doesn't make them instant friends. So when they return after a few days with a good haul of fish, Liam wants to head to the pub, but Nick just wants to see his family. But something has happened: the high street is filled with cars and people, the food bank is a post office, the pub is full, and some woman is calling Liam 'Alan' and ordering him to come home with her and their daughter. It seems they've gone back in time, and Liam is now the man who was lost with the boat, and Nick is thought to be the man who stayed ashore.
While any camera can show you the beauty and danger of the sea, it takes good sound to express the auditory connection, and print to express the texture of fishing nets, rusting chains, the feel of a scaly fish as you tear a knife through its guts, then toss them to the hovering seagulls. All this makes an audience taste the sea salt in the air. Just these two men and their skipper, trying to eek out a living that takes them away from land for days at a time. But that's what is necessary to survive, in a place that leaves them little other choice on the means of survival.
For Liam, something of a rogue vagabond, to suddenly be thrust into the role and husband and father is an adjustment, but one he turns to. Perhaps as a man used to solitude, the days on the boat as the respite he needs, but the days with this unexpected family given him a balance of security. He had nothing before, but now he has something.
For Nick, it is quite the opposite: he had something, and now he has nothing, at least that was his. His wife and child do not exist in this world; his neighbours see him as his son, and he knows the future that awaits them, one obliterated in grief, if Nick follows the son's path. Nick would rather sleep on the floor of his currently empty future home, than accept this time-travel fate. Each time the boat returns to dock, Nick prays for a return to his own time.
But the sea has other ideas. In a place like Cornwall, jutting out from the southern end of England, with its own language and culture even today, the sea is an ancient god that still envelopes all. Is the sea playing mischief with Liam and Nick, or did it send back the Rose of Nevada for a purpose? Did the weight of grief, not just of parents over the loss of a child, but the community over the loss of its identity, tip the scale out of favour of one individual?
As with his previous films, Jenkin shot the film with a wind-up Bolex camera, on 16mm. Even with two different time periods, there still feels a slight distinction: the past feels like some kind of nostalgia, but the contemporary time feels worn out, and both are evoked through this same camera. The hand-cranking also evokes the same cranking of chains used on the boat to pull in the hoped-for haul of fish, this representation of a community. Jenkin looks for community in both the labour of food gathering and the labour of artistic creation and representation.
Rose of Nevada once again shows Jenkin as a rare voice that combines artistic talent with stories of social urgency, his labour in making a film reflecting the labour that comes with community. There are individuals voices, but strength comes from human contact, connection, some sacrifice, and understanding the ancient ways that still rule us all, even if only from the deep.