The Wanting Mare Review: A Visually Transporting Fable With a Stubbornly Opaque Story The Wanting Mare Review: A Visually Transporting Fable With a Stubbornly Opaque Story
Nicholas Ashe Bateman s directing debut is a triumph of dystopian world-building as three generations of women share the same dream of the world before.
Mark Keizer, provided by
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Running time: Running time: 89 MIN.
The explanatory text that opens “The Wanting Mare,” Nicholas Ashe Bateman’s ambitious, epoch-spanning directing debut, informs us that in the city of Whithren, citizens are desperate to escape by booking passage on the once-a-year transport ship that carries wild horses to the wintry promised land of Levithen. These words, a fantasist’s delight, only barely set the table for what’s to come, a visually enthralling but elliptical and withholding quasi post-apocalyptic drama about three generations of Whithren women who carry with them the burdensome memories of �
There is value in big ideas, and “The Wanting Mare” is full of them. Nicholas Ashe Bateman’s debut is a cornucopia of gorgeous locations and beautifully lit figures, their lonely majesty interrupted every so often by lengthy speeches about dreams and the desire to break free. The film weaves together myriad fantastical elements: a dream passed down through matriarchal generations; oppositional cities trapped in different climes; fissures of crime and bloodshed that further tear apart an already-desperate city. There’s a grand quality to this lore, and a magical appeal to its imagery. But the failure of “The Wanting Mare” is in how superficial its world building is, and how unexplored its greatest questions remain. Technically, the film’s use of visual effects is unquestionably impressive, but all that CGI is in service of a narrative so underdeveloped that its 88-minute run-time sometimes feels like an eternity.
THE WANTING MARE Is a Dreamy, Dazzling Fantasy Debut
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Every so often a movie comes along that leaves you breathless. As if you wandered into a dream and don’t want to leave. I can’t put my finger on what, specifically, entranced me about Nicholas Ashe Bateman’s debut feature
The Wanting Mare. Maybe it’s the starry fantasy landscape, like watercolor smeared over a grey-blue horizon. Or the characters who dance sometimes literally through each frame, ethereal and alive. Or maybe it’s the buzzing score, which ties the story together like an elegant lace.
I’m sure, in actuality, it is the combination of all of the above, coupled with Bateman’s fierce imagination.