Directors and writers Adam Mann and Skye Mann weave an atmospheric Irish folk horror in the cautionary tale A Guide to Becoming an Elm Tree. Relying on ancient folklore and Celtic fairy tales, the film is beguiling and mysterious. It concerns a grieving widower, Padraig (James Healy-Meaney) who asks to use the workshop of a carpenter named John (Gerry Wade) to fashion a coffin for his already buried wife, Aoibheann. In the small town where John’s workshop is located Padraig is viewed with suspicion. Yet something about, or in, the trees calls to him with a pleading voice and soon Padraig is ignoring the warning signs and conducting arcane rituals to resurrect his lost love.
John, styled to resemble a modern-day druid, initiates Padraig into the lore around the trees. Whether he stands as a warning or a temptation forms part of the central mystery of the film. What he does ask is that Padraig learn about the wood he is working with and respects the customs that have been in place over centuries. Drawing on tales of the Crann Bethadh (The Tree of Life) and the Sidhe Draoi (Celtic dryads) A Guide to Becoming an Elm Tree is a resplendent, yet horrifying piece of mythology become cinema. Through the narrative the audience learns of the mystical forces that tempt and beguile Padraig, a man for whom making a bargain with the forest will cost him more than he can imagine.
Visually, the film is reminiscent of Mark Jenkin, a Cornish director whose works Bait and Enys Men explored both the hardscrabble life of working in a dying industry (a reference that is pertinent to John’s struggles) and the uncanny powers of ancient monuments and nature in Enys Men. Cinematographer Conor Tobin uses the same claustrophobic 4:3 ratio and black and white to give A Guide to Becoming an Elm Tree a sense of unease which also prefigures the fate of the protagonist – a man trapped in the same coffins as his wife.
“Treachery returns to the treacherous,” is a warning given to Padraig by a local barkeep as he relates the story of a chieftain whose vaunting obsession caused resulted in the death of his young wife and caused an entire community to disappear. Padraig’s obsession with his wife and his insistence on ignoring those wiser than himself will have a toll not only on him mentally, physically, and metaphysically, but the small town he has chosen to make his temporary home.
Adam Mann and Skye Mann’s script and direction are as beguiling as the ancient mythology they invoke. “Nothing comes for free,” is a tale oft repeated in folklore. Gods and spirits give and take as they see fit and no bargain can be struck without consequence. The trees that know our desires and offer false hope are those that call loudest. A Guide to Becoming an Elm Tree is poetic in both its message and its application. A disquieting and eerie work with an impeccable pictorial language.
Directors: Adam Mann, Skye Mann
Cast: James Health-Meaney, Gerry Wade, M.J. Sullivan
Writers: Adam Mann, Skye Mann