A Wounded Fawn

It begins with a quote from the surrealist artist and novelist Leonora Carrington: “I suddenly became aware that I was both mortal and touchable and that I could be destroyed.” The quote refers to the process of recovery from a breakdown which had seen her confined to an asylum; to the experience of recovering sanity. It’s an interesting choice for a film about the Erinyes, also known as the Furies, the Ancient Greek goddesses of retribution whose talents often focused on driving their targets to madness.

We glimpse the Erinyes first in bronze form, in a highly valuable antique statuette being sold at auction. It is purchased – on behalf of a still wealthier client, naturally – by an elegant woman. That night, the losing bidder arrives at her home, telling her that his client wants to make hers an offer. It’s irregular, but there could be a sizeable commission involved, so she lets him in and prepares to make the call. In a different type of film, she might do very nicely out of this, but she doesn’t know who she’s dealing with.

We next see the man (Josh Ruben) when he sets his sights on another woman. Meredith (Sarah Lind). She’s not wealthy or glamorous in the same way, but she’s highly educated and intelligent, with a vivacity about her which quickly grabs one’s attention – a much rarer quality. We next see the bronze Erinyes in the remote cabin in the woods where the man has driven her for what she thinks is going to be a fun weekend break. He’s planning something very different, but despite the trust she shows in him, he might not get his way, because something else is happening – something unsettling to them both.

The great discovery which deludes many killers into thinking they’re clever or more powerful than others is that they can do things which break the rules of normal human interaction. To enter this space, however, inevitably entails losing the security which the rules provide. The man has made a habit of preying on women, and now the Furies are ready to prey on him. Will their intervention come in time to let the increasingly rattled Meredith escape?

Director Travis Stevens showed a willingness to step outside the bounds of cinematic convention with his last feature, Jakob’s Wife, and A Wounded Fawn takes that approach further, utilising elaborate costumes and elements of dance to tell a story which is unashamedly arty yet still packs an emotional punch. It all feels like a build-up to the marvellous extended closing credits sequence, which deserves to be watched in its entirety. Here the film really comes into its own, drawing out themes around performance, entitlement, and how we play the roles we choose to take on in life.

Overall, this bold experiment in genre filmmaking is a bit hit and miss, but it’s exciting to see Stevens getting the support he needs to do this kind of work, and he’s on an interesting trajectory. One looks forward to seeing what will come next.

A Wounded Fawn screened at Frightfest and is coming to Shudder later this year.