Fantastic Fest 2023: BARK

This year’s Fantastic Fest holds dark secrets and horrors in the depths of the forest, with individuals entering with the bleak realization they may never be able to leave. And for both Paweł Borowski‘s Mushrooms and Marc Schölermann‘s Bark, it is not until the final moments that the true horror settles in. Yet, where Mushrooms retains an almost Grimm fairy tale feeling, Bark has a bit more bite. Schölermann‘s Bark does not bask in the aspects of suspicion, the audience constantly wavering in their understanding of the events that are playing out. Rather, Bark plays on the maddening isolation and sense of despair when all hope seems lost and escape impossible. Schölermann does not want you to generate your own theories to the reasons of its central protagonist’s predicament, but rather to stand and bear witness.

Fair is Fair

Schölermann‘s Bark opens from behind its subject, a skewed camera angle speaking to the unusual position he is about to find himself in. As he comes to, he is greeted by the peaceful sounds of the forest, confusion taking hold and drastically contrasting the serene environment around him. Immediately he comes to understand that he has been tied to a tree, escape seemingly impossible. As he calls out into the forest, he is only met by the sounds of its vast isolation.

The film spends almost its first third on the man, his suit glaringly crafting an out-of-place feeling. As he struggles to free himself, Bark establishes a sense of time through the placement of the sun and the moon. More effectively, however, it embraces a sense of delirium, his lack of water and food enhancing not only the time that has passed but the time he is running out of.

His starvation and dehydration lead the man to hallucinate, at times finding salvation, while others destruction. These moments are intense as they give the film an early sense that reality is not how we might imagine it is. This is further challenged when a man appears one morning setting up camp. He seems unreal, especially as he refuses to release the man tied to the tree before him. As reality becomes shifted and altered due to the tied man’s deteriorating condition, it becomes all to evident the camper is in fact real – and determined to keep him there.

Bark builds much of its intensity through a variety of camera angles, giving the viewer a sense of chaos and distortion. This is heavily utilized in the film’s first third, pulling back as the camper enters. He represents the growing clarity of what is happening, the sense of an unspoken need for justice that audiences and the man will struggle to comprehend. Fair is fair – but in the face of what?

Conclusion:

Bark presents itself as an unexpected introspection of self, the man tied to the tree forced to understand why he is there – forced to understand that no amount of wealth or threats can free him. We as an audience understand that he is there for a reason there has to be. Yet, Bark never lends itself to a nonsensical randomness of evil. It toys with the idea before introducing the camper, yet it wants you to come to the understanding there is more than what meets the eye.

And when Bark is ready to reveal its secrets, hold on because it will rip your heart out. It is a revelation that will relive itself in your memories, becoming one of the most ghastly reveals I have seen in some time. Simply delicate, yet effectively brutal, any reservations you as a viewer may feel by the film’s end will be solidified into one sound conclusion.

I’m not sure I could watch Bark again, one screening enough to horrify me for a lifetime. You may have your suspicions as the film begins to close out, slowly piecing what may seem relevant information throughout, but hold on tight. This is not a film to be taken lightly.