Eyes up, dude. That volcano’s face isn’t down there!
Woman In The Woods (2020) is a PSA: It serves to remind us that when the gods engage in love, hatred, and whatever other emotions are peculiar to the divine class of beings, they act as grinding stones to the mere mortals that roam the world. Jason, whose father was Filipino and has recently passed away, decides to travel to The Philippines in search of that which haunted his father, who was forever regretful at leaving his homeland. A bit of a whiner, and with his father’s voice echoing – literally – in his head, Jason tentatively invades the forest, hoping to get its essence and, uh, get out.
But, instead, he encounters a woman. Clad in animal skins, an unfamiliar language, and an impenetrable attitude, an attitude not even pierced by the arrow hanging out of her hip, Jason is bewildered and, perhaps, a little frightened by her. But when she collapses, he scoops her up and hauls her off to the local witch doctor, or at least someone who knows how to pull out an arrow and see the impossible, whose name I forget. She tells him a tale of a local volcano god, at fierce odds with another god who killed her lover, and, maybe he should take this woman to the volcano.
Across the forbidding strait, of course. But we’re off on the adventure, from railcar to foot to boat, dodging gods and minions and the love-smitten. Will Jason get her up the volcano’s lip? Is that even his goal?
The whining bothered me, because whining bothers me. But the storytellers are admirable in the paucity of information they dispense, and the pace at which they do. The acting and story both feel organic, and at least one monster was both sublime, in the Burkean sense, and creepy creepy creepy.
I won’t quite recommend it, but it’s interesting and very good. If you’re in the mood for something a bit off-kilter, this is worth a go.
And remind me not to fall in love with any goddesses.
