You Won’t Be Alone review: the most beautiful movie about witches ever made

Polygon’s team reports from the virtual grounds of 2022 Sundance International Film Festival. They will be reporting on the next wave independent films in horror, sci-fi and documentary film.

It is an act that shows love, reflecting on your thoughts and actions can be a form of reflection. It’s why when I’m holding my friend’s child, I mimic their expressions, showing their feelings on my face. Why my wife, to make me laugh, contorts her nose and mouth to look like mine does when I’m feeling overwhelmed. Why it’s hard to face someone who’s weeping without feeling tears of your own. We show people who we think they should be by using our bodies. That’s what love is, after a fashion.

You Won’t Be AloneReflection is the basis of all good films. The feature debut of Australian writer-director Goran Stalevski is a horror film of sorts, though it’s less about scaring the audience, and more about contemplating the possible fear of being perceived and perceiving others, courting their acceptance and risking their rejection. Stalevski conveys this horror through violence, blood and guts, and witchcraft.

The film is set in Macedonia 19th century and follows Nevena (Sara Klimoska), a young, feral witch who finds herself lost in a village. She is curious about the village and its inhabitants. But she doesn’t want to be a witch. The film’s folkloric roots tell us that witches are able to transform themselves by using the flesh of other people. Nevena, who accidentally killed a villager in an accident, takes advantage of the situation to pretend her identity and starts her first life as a person.

You Won’t Be Alone is largely dialogue-free, and it’s pushed along by Nevena’s narration, as she learns to live as a human, with different actors taking over the role when Nevena changes bodies — first The Dragon Tattoo Girl Noomi Rapace star, Tabu’s Carloto Cotta, and finally Alice Englert. Each body opens up a whole new world for Nevena, whether she is a woman or a man. Then, finally, Nevena becomes a parent.

Nevena comes in many forms. Each Nevena version is wide-eyed with awe and endlessly absorbs everything that she sees. She can laugh and cry as a girl. She learns how to laugh and cry as a woman. As a child, she’s ready to take what she loves and leave what she does not. She is a poet whose reflections have beautiful imagery and a cadence that’s poetic. It’s very difficult to walk away from You Won’t Be AloneIt’s easy to write down its thoughts and recall its images in a notebook. It’s a film of wonder, of watching, mimicking, and soaking in awe. Nevena is the one who watches and we are there to observe people’s lives and compare them. Nevena tells what her view of humanity is, and then we look at our lives to see how it compares. Consider:

“When the man is in the room, you are not a woman. You are bread. You’re stew. It is his place. It will trickle out like water. Trickle out and drain.”

“But when the woman is in the room, your mouth, it should never stop opening. If the woman is present in the room you will be a look-glass. When her eyebrows lift up, yours — you lift them up too. When here eyes go wide, yours — you make them go wide too.”

“To the woman, you are glass. To the man, you are water.”

You Won’t Be AloneThis visual poem is about traditions, gender and seeing through other people’s eyes. It is, through the frame of the screen and Mark Bradshaw’s lush score, a bleeding, gory metaphor for why we watch movies. It is reflection. It’s love.

Focus Features will soon be available You Won’t Be AloneOn April 1.