In 19th century Macedonia, parents would frighten their children with cautionary tales of witches when they misbehaved. In Goran Stolevski’s You Won’t Be Alone, the audience is introduced to the Wolf-Eateress, based loosely on Macedonian folklore but mainly an invention for the film. In this fabricated lore, the creature is an immortal, bloodthirsty witch who has the power to inhabit a person’s body at will, which results in an unsettling folk horror film that has a knack for getting under the skin (no pun intended).
At the start of the film, a woman with her newborn baby is visited by a Wolf-Eateress, who is hungry for fresh blood. The mother makes a bargain with the witch to leave her child alone until her 16th birthday, and the witch agrees to comply, but not without removing the baby girl's tongue as a gruesome blood pact. The mother thinks she can outwit the witch by hiding her baby in an isolated cave, but this results in the girl growing up feral. Unfortunately, the mother’s efforts to protect her child ultimately prove unsuccessful, and the witch still discovers the sheltered girl when she turns 16. Through her spit, the witch turns the curious teenager into a Wolf-Eateress too and brings her out into the world to show her how to use her freshly acquired powers.
You Won’t Be Alone is a visceral examination of a female learning about her own body and repressive societal roles. After showing defiance toward the witch, the girl is cast out and forced to navigate the world of her own devices, quickly beginning to practice her new powers on local villagers. Filled with awe, the girl learns more about humanity via the bodies she inhabits, and it’s a difficult, hyper-sensory experience for her. Through the use of handheld cameras and uncomfortably close shots, the audience sees the world anew, much like this girl who is constantly thrown into unfamiliar situations.
The most interesting aspect of this film is that the audience gets a glimpse of life through the monster’s eyes. Much like Jonathan Glazer’s Under the Skin, the antagonist quickly becomes the protagonist and the camera cares little about anything else. The villagers are all vehicles in this young witch’s story and the viewer is along for the ride. While she is portrayed as an outsider, her interactions with the villagers shed light upon both the beauty and ugliness of humanity, and she begins to understand what it means to be a woman. This happens most poignantly when she inhabits the body of a man and is instantly treated differently: rather than think she is crazy for her quirks, the villagers laugh off her odd behavior as a male and dismiss it as nothing.
While some interesting ideas exist in You Won’t Be Alone, a few qualities about it will make the film polarizing. The handheld camerawork feels excessive at times, and there’s scarce plot holding everything together. The film simply follows the shapeshifting witch from body to body with different experiences in each and lingers too long on some of her experiences. Patient arthouse fans who like a good challenge might appreciate this one, but for those who want more than a meandering, tactile observation of this witch’s daily life punctuated by a few intense, bloody moments might feel disappointed. The intriguing concept loses its novelty and at some point begins to feel tedious.
A woman is forced to play many “roles” in this world, sometimes against her will. You Won’t Be Alone explores this idea from a fresh perspective, assaulting the viewers with antiquated gender norms that feel like the real monster lurking within this somewhat taxing film. Many will be put off by the film’s approach, but for some, it will be a welcome exploration of the female experience.
--Andrea Riley
