A road movie can sometimes be not just a journey, but also a reinvention of collective memory and language. Master artist Ben Rivers’s experimental road film “Mare’s Nest” tells the story of a young girl’s journey in a post-societal world where adults have completely vanished. Rivers’s work presents a fusion that defies boundaries between genres and aesthetics by channeling writer Don DeLillo’s intense philosophical dialogues through the mouths of children.
When history goes mad, how do children rebuild the world? Ben Rivers’s enigmatic film “ “Mare’s Nest” poses this question in a post-apocalyptic setting. The director has deliberately constructed the film as a world free from adult authority, viewing this absence not as a “Lord of the Flies”-style catastrophe, but as an optimistic and anarchic opportunity for freedom.
The film progresses as a series of vignette-like fragmented encounters, following young Moon (Moon Guo Barker) emerging from a crashed car and meeting other children in a barren landscape. With this structure, “Mare’s Nest” follows the “Climate Tale” and “Hybrid Experimental Cinema” movements; the film carries the anxiety created by the climate crisis while eschewing traditional narrative coherence.
DeLillo’s Whispers and Tactile Aesthetics The film’s most striking artistic achievement lies in the sections incorporating writer Don DeLillo’s philosophical play “The Word for Snow.” The anti-naturalistic dialogues delivered with eerie seriousness by the child actors transform the film from a simple fable into a deep, resonating text. The children in the film question the meaning of human language and communication while history is in chaos.
Rivers’s cinematography is another stroke of genius. The film continuously mixes the textures of color and black-and-white, digital and Super 16mm film stock, creating a haunting yet tactile aesthetic that reflects themes of memory and decay. The natural landscapes shot in various international locations such as Wales, Spain, and the Balearic Islands enhance the film’s thematic intensity.
“Mare’s Nest” is not merely a road movie; it is a daring work that establishes a textual layer even with Rivers’s previous works, like the Minotaur within himself, arguing that myth and art are the new lifelines that will protect children “when history goes mad.” The viewer realizes that the film offers no answers, but poses profound questions about the weight and mystery of existence.
Film Information:
Director: Ben Rivers
Screenwriter: Ben Rivers, Don DeLillo
Release Year: 2024
Themes: Post-Apocalypse, Experimental Cinema, Language, Climate Anxiety, and Childhood.
Award Note: Premiered at the Locarno Film Festival and garnered praise in festival circles.
