A Spell To Ward Off The Darkness

Experimental filmmakers Ben Rivers and Ben Russell team up on this weird, dreamlike triptych. It centres on a gloomy, barely sketched character (Robert Lowe) searching for meaning by embracing life in an Estonian commune, before leaving it all behind to live alone, without a sound, in the woods.

Eventually, he goes on to embrace the darkness of the title by fronting a Norwegian black metal band, howling into the inky cave of a venue while slathered in white corpse paint. It’s a film of contrasts – community and solitude, silence and primal noise, darkness and light – perfectly shot, wilfully slow and enjoyably baffling.