A DARK SONG (2016)
One location, two faces: Catherine Walker brings palatable turmoil to speak to the dead - forever shrouded by council estate sorcerer Steve Oram - in this Abramelin-inspired journey.
GRIEVING from the death of her son at the hands of an undisclosed ritual, Sophia Howard (Catherine Walker) rents an isolated house in Wales. Abrasive, alcoholic occultist Joseph Solomon (Steve Oram) leads her on a months-long rite based on The Book of Abramelin, to summon her guardian angel whom Sophia can then ask to speak with her son. The relationship between Sophia and Joseph becomes frayed as the grueling ceremonies unfold, and Solomon is seriously wounded when he accidentally falls on a kitchen knife. With Howard increasingly susceptible to sounds and shadows, Solomon succumbs from his injury. After breaking a seal surrounding the house, demons drag Sophia to the basement and torture her; but the deities retreat when Howard sees a white light, and an armoured angel awaits her. As it silently speaks behind aniridia eyes, Sophia’s redemption is one of forgiveness rather than revenge.
This confident British/Irish independent - the debut feature by writer-director Liam Gavin - contains such a detailed and methodical approach to occult ritual that it can only be a slow-burner (which is pretty unique in cinema, summoning is usually successful within minutes). But it is much more than a building psychological horror, its as if Ben Wheatley and Mike Leigh wrote a script after watching REPULSION and THE EXORCIST (the other prime example of systematic terror). When Solomon completes his salt circle around the retreat, not only are the duo cutting themselves from society, but from conventional reality. There is also a stripped-down enchantment here, a supernatural veneer that gives us hope against technological progress and the scientific march into an abyss.
"Science describes the least of things;" the third act sees payoff from the Abramelin ritual, as Sophia confronts her warrior guardian angel, as if lifted from a Renaissance painting.
Walker is magnificent as the tortured soul, blending steely determination with inquisitive desperation. Oram's gruff pie and chips mystic is no Stephen Strange, and sits uncomfortably with the seriousness of the narrative, but he is also uncomfortable in his skin. Before the terror takes hold, the audience is never sure of Howard's legitimacy (in a brief tea room scene with her sister, there are hints of mental illness), or if Solomon is just a pervert with a robe and ginger beard.
Abramelin and its demand for intricate, long-term preparation is credited to 14th-century Egyptian magician Abra-Melin, and plays out like a binding contract. In 1897, The Book of the Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage was translated into English by British occultist Samuel L. MacGregor Mathers, and was highly influential in the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. Aleister Crowley - at the time a young member - started preparations for seeking the angel in Boleskine House, but abandoned this plan during the Hermetic Order division of 1901. The one thing that Mathers, Crowley and, indeed, most occultists, take from Abramelin is the existence of a benevolent demigod; consequently, a master or supreme magus can feed any number of charismatic and egotistical myth-makers.
