June is observed in many countries as Men’s Mental Health Awareness month, with the third Sunday being Father’s Day. In a perfect world every man’s mental health would be looked out for with timely advice, and a shoulder to lean or cry on. Less ideally, however, a lot of men continue to face challenges and pass through difficult circumstances alone, like Boyce (the hunter), Dave Bautista’s character from In The Lost Lands. The film is an atypical love story between a savage hunter and a beguiling witch. The hellscape they traverse together can be seen as an allegory to the experiences many men endure as they navigate through life and relationships.
Based on a short story by Game of Thrones writer George R.R. Martin, the film was directed by Paul W. S. Anderson who is married to the female lead Mila Jovovich (Gray Alys, the Witch). The film also stars Arly Jover as Ash (the Enforcer), Amara Okereke as Melange (the Queen), Fraser James as Patriarch Johan, Simon Lööf as Jerais (Captain of the Overwatch), Deirdre Mullins as Mara, Sebastian Stankiewicz as Ross, and Jacek Dzisiewicz as “the Overlord.’’
The fantasy genre film received generally low ratings. In a damning review film critic Giovanni Lago, writes,‘’While their work isn’t anything special, the haphazard dialogue they must regurgitate has no substance to aid any working actor who would take on this job.’’ Scoring the film at 2/10 Lago concludes, ‘’When the action subsides, In The Lost Lands is a myriad of half-witted palace intrigue and unfocused storylines that all fall apart at the seams.’’ In spite of the negative reception by critics, something in the 1 hour 41 minutes film’s convoluted romantic subplot illuminates the modern-day dilemma for Zimbabwean men seeking to be in a stable amorous relationship. As the witch would say, “Some are poor, some are rich. All are desperate.’’
As an overview, the film portrays its male protagonist’s entanglement with four women that could be seen as archetypal characters. The Enforcer is like a psychotic ex-wife stalking an ex-husband who has eloped with another woman. The Queen uses Boyce as a tool for revenge to cuckold her doomed husband the Overlord, and as an inadvertent sperm donor in her twisted scheme to wrest power by conceiving an illegitimate heir.
The Witch entraps the Hunter, literally gets under his skin, and ends up becoming his saviour. And then there’s Mara who has an intermittent no strings attached relationship with Boyce. Her post-coital remarks as she reclined beside him on her bed ‘’You come, you go. I don’t know anything about you.’’ resonate from a desolate psychic landscape mirrored by the physical terrain. She becomes the ultimate sacrifice when she is crucified and dies for his sins.
There’s a sideshow of stereotypical males in contrast to the self-aware main character who professes ‘’But no one ever accused me of being a clever man.’’ Jerais, referring to the queen ironically believes, ‘’I know what’s good for her better than she knows herself.’’ An incapacitated Overlord is metaphorically kicked when he is down as his queen sneers at him, ‘’The mighty Overlord. Hard to believe you built all this. And that they still fear you. You’re nothing more than a filthy pig, just like all men.’’ And Patriarch Johan who as his name implies, is seemingly resentful that a woman should wield more power than himself.
The film opens with the appearance of Boyce coming out of a hazy, misty, and dark background situates the story by narrating, “The world you know is gone, consumed by the flames of a great war long ago when death rained from the sky. All that’s left now are The Lost Lands, filled with twisted creatures that dwell in the shadows.’’
In his direct to camera prologue extracted from hindsight he warns viewers that the story is not a fairy tale and there will be no happy ending. Translations from literature to film often disappoint readers. In the opening scene, the narrator highlights the main objective of the project, ‘Long ago a mysterious witch, Gray Alys, emerged from the Lost Lands. This is the story of how we met and how she saved the both of us.’’
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The symbolism of a man who is a shape-shifter is used as an appropriate metaphor to a redeemable extent. When Gray Alys inquires, “I’m looking for a man who can turn into a beast.’’ Boyce responds “All men are beasts.’’ Yet there’s hope in her rejoinder, ‘’But not all men are monsters.’’ And where the queen seemingly falls in love with the beast nature, the witch does not.
In the end the man whose shortcomings are deeply ingrained is redeemed by another outcast after they try to kill each other at the dark edge of town.
The climax happens on a moonlit night in Skull Valley when Boyce the hunter turns to ‘’Sardor, the Great Wolf.’’ The witch exposes herself as a cunning, deceptive, cheating, and manipulative partner by confessing, ‘’I learned all your weaknesses along the way. I even added to them.’’ She also admits to gaslighting him, ‘’It was just an illusion. To distract you, to leave you vulnerable.’’
In the end a new relationship is formed between Boyce and Gray Alys. It is not a fairy tale, because it is not predicated on a positive or negative outcome. And it is not a happy ending because happiness depends on conditions. She saves him by taking him at his worst moment, after he has turned into the monster Sardor, just as she planned beforehand ‘’I need him as a wolf.’’ And she saves herself by defeating the monster inside Boyce, which she could never outrun literally and figuratively. Their new relationship aligns with the evolutionary impulse of the universe in which the drama plays out.
Film critics may say that director Anderson’s latest offering is in Shakespeare’s words, “ a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.’’ Maybe Anderson and Jovovich were creatively working out their marital issues. The couple who have been married since 2009 have three daughters of which the oldest turns 18 this year. If the preceding hypotheses were close enough, then as the Enforcer once ironically proclaimed, “Let this be an example to all!’’
About reviewer
- Nyadzombe Nyampenza is an art critic, photographer, and conceptual artist. In 2023 he was the NAMA recipient for Outstanding Journalist (Print). He was awarded Second Prize at the Zimbabwe Annual Art Exhibition (2016), and represented Zimbabwe at Bamako Encounters (Photography Biennale) in Mali (2015). Nyadzombe was the 2020 Fellow at Apex Art, in New York City. He is passionate about non-fiction creative writing and his ambition is to raise public awareness about visual arts from Zimbabwe through engaging, accessible, critical, and entertaining narratives.
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