A rare Welsh-language release, this handsome S4C-produced chiller sustains itself for a while on the wordless rhythms and textures in the life of woodsman Stanley (Mark Lewis Jones): long, lonely rounds of digging and praying promise there will eventually be blood. His routine is disrupted when young lovers (Annes Elwy and Dyfan Dwyfor) plunge their car into a nearby stream. So begins a period of increasingly tense cohabitation as repressed memories and emotions are hauled to the surface like water from the local well. This gradual excavation, with its spectral presences, may disappoint those who demand more bang for their buck. Yet it’s assuredly played, and its melancholy look and feel – with fading photographs of brighter, better days – ensures it lingers longer in the mind than most homegrown genre fare. Writer Ed Talfan and director Gareth Bryn find in their characters’ apparent isolation something simultaneously beautiful, terrifying and sad.
