You Won’t Be Alone [2022]
“The world… it has been here so long, so long.
Everything… means something else.
And yet… And yet…”
Stunning, profound, upsetting, confounding, and surprisingly approachable; Goran Stolevski has written his way into the feature film scene with a poignantly philosophical look at the simple strangeness, beauty, and horror that it is to be alive. Akin to 2016’s A Ghost Story, You Won't Be Alone will give some audiences the heebie-jeebies because they don’t understand it, while it will give them to others… because they do.
By taking a familiar villain and turning them into a catalyst for entrancing storytelling instead of abject horror, Stolevski has created a film like few others, and one that is unlikely to be repeated. One of the strengths of this soiree into the metaphysical is its accessibility. While still abstract in some ways, the plot and meaning is less obfuscated than Lowery’s A Ghost Story, and I hope that leads Alone into not only the hands of more viewers, but their hearts as well. While it isn’t quite as profound as Ghost was, it’s so much easier to watch, capture, and enjoy that I think it makes up the ground.
Truly showing the intricate life behind otherwise mundane or primitive scenes, Alone does some very heavy lifting with it's cinematography. Principle photographer, Matthew Chuang, brings environments to life and creates deep emotions out of silence where this film that could have easily been boring and plain if the vision behind the cameras wasn’t so strong. Enhancing that is a wonderful script full of brave questions, meaningful answers, and performances that sell each line with the weight they deserve.
While Stolveski’s debut won’t be for everyone [these movies never are] it fits neatly into a niche that I think is rarely explored with any kind of tact, understanding, or care. Though it isn’t a love story, it is an ode to love. Not romantic love or even platonic love, however. You Won’t Be Alone is an ode to the love of loving, the love of living. What it means to be alive and see the world. Feel the grass, taste the wind, and hear the strange and beautiful lives around you. Because after all,
“What isn’t strange? What isn’t… when you think about it?”
