Movie Review ~ Azrael

We’ve had silent movies where there is either no dialogue or the dialogue is on inserts you have to read.  We’ve had movies with sound where one character has no dialogue.  However, I can’t recall the last film I’ve seen with no speaking parts.  Despite reports, Azrael isn’t wholly without dialogue, but the large majority of the new horror film is conveyed without words, and by stripping away that communication and relying solely on atmosphere, tension, and raw physicality, writer Simon Barrett (You’re Next) and director E.L. Katz, take a bold leap into the unknown.

In Barrett and Katz’s world, horror is conveyed through primal emotion and bone-deep dread, creating a one-of-a-kind experience that is as much about the fight for survival as it is about narrative storytelling. Through Azrael, they’ve created a visceral thriller that mixes the terror of separation from the outside world and the potency of religious radicalism into one big, deeply unsettling stew.

Azrael (Samara Weaving, Ready or Not) has escaped the clutches of her devout, isolated community along with her partner Kenan (Nathan Stewart-Jarrett, Candyman).  In the opening moments, they are captured again, and she’s set to be sacrificed in a ritual to satisfy an evil that lurks in the wilderness surrounding their encampment.  Through chilling determination, Azarel fights to live and refuses to go quietly into the claws of the crisped-bodied creatures that haunt the area, hungry for blood and flesh…but mostly blood. 

The lack of dialogue in Katz’s film is more than a stylistic choice.  In sending its heroine on a silent war raging with primary energy, the visual storytelling is pure and can’t fall prey to trite dialogue or off-key line readings.  Instead, the cast must rely on their physicality to communicate their growing desperation and fear.  In the title role, Weaving’s expressive eyes relay the character’s initial defiance and eventual resolve to evade the cult chasing her and the freakish monsters hunting her down.  It’s a remarkable performance again calling out Weaving’s admirable talent for throwing herself into these down-and-dirty roles, cementing herself as a powerhouse deserving of wider industry recognition.

Weaving is onscreen for nearly all of the film, but she’s not alone in delivering a memorable performance.  Vic Carmen Sonne (the breathtaking star of the stark Cannes/TIFF drama The Girl with the Needle) brings a quiet, menacing intensity as Miriam, the pregnant leader of the sect who sends her minions out after Azrael.  One of those minions is Josephine, played by Katariina Unt, and her terrifying focus on bringing Azrael to slaughter gives the film an extra layer of dread.

Filmed in Estonia, cinematographer Mart Taiel transforms the benign woods into a living, breathing character in and of itself.  Maximizing the ethos of minimalist horror, Taiel captures fog-shrouded trees that close in tighter the deeper you travel and pathways that lead nowhere safe.  There’s still beauty in the bleakness, though, with Jaanus Vahtra’s costume design acting as a semi-camouflage in the woods who see the forest as both a refuge and a threat.  It’s intentionally claustrophobic, down to Tóti Guðnason’s creeping score that plays underneath the action, often like a heartbeat. 

More than just a survival horror film, Azrael is a powerful experience about what can be achieved through visual storytelling.  Sans dialogue, the film pushes the audience into unfamiliar territory even when operating in common genre trappings.  Weaving’s fearless performance and stunning cinematography give the film extra power to stand out from the crowd, helped by a frequently pulse-pounding narrative thick with an intense mythos rarely seen in modern horror.