Set in a time unspoken, in a place unmentioned, there exists a small horde of blood-soaked tribesmen in the rocky hillsides, scouring the landscape with savagery. On nearby shores, a beautiful women in white, her children nestled in play outside, emerges from a thatched hut and offers a haunting, melodic call to the hills while a lone, bearded figure welcomes with a potent urgency, her echoes. Fate soon binds them, one and all.
Written and directed by Daniel Boocock, The Neolith is a brief encounter, traveling us for its 30 minutes through the desolate yet majestic craggy valleys of northern Scotland, centered on four desperate men in animal skins, their faces soiled with blood, living by fire and a tortured brotherhood that levels fury between them, even in their collected need for survival. Goaded by hallucinogens and primal barbarism, the four are a swath of rage and death, and yet … much more.
Barely a word is spoken in the full runtime of this exquisitely shot and produced film, those that are mere fleeting whispers when compared to the guttural howls and screams that make up for most of what is communicated among these very few characters. What’s so profound about that is how strongly these cries and bellows tell us exactly what they mean. It’s almost hypnotic how impactful these sounds are, even during a midnight campfire as one chants a baritone, throaty tune while hostility mounts.
The story is surely ancient, perhaps even legendary, though I do not know of its origins. The four primitive men, despite their similar appearance, are unique among themselves, with one in particular culling away from the others, his heart less clung to the party’s breed for violence and so, his destiny lay tied to a different path. Surely the woman and the man also represent much about humanity and the Earth itself, meaning great interpretation fills every frame, the Sun, ocean, mountains and more illustrating a powerful sense of eternity even in the passage of a single day.
I dare not say what befalls these tragic yet noble people, our connection to them not bound by any sense of who they are but rather what they are to each other. It’s not important to learn their names or place in time, only that they are here, now, and faced with that fact. Boocock infused terrible menace to the pace yet leaves the butchery of it all unseen, the aftermath the thing that matters, not the fight itself. We know no heroes, we assign no evil, even as the story feels like we should.
This is Boocock’s second effort, and watching it, you can’t help but feel uplifted by his work, the sense of atmosphere and artistry in his visuals almost gripping. Unbound by a major studio, he’s able to produce an evocative, harrowing tale of humanity that urges its audience to find its own answers. This is a film where you want to know more and stay longer yet realize that it is in fact, precisely what it should be and no more, no less. It has set itself on my chest where I ponder it still.