A Dark Song (2016) – Review

Opening / Feel

It’s Sunday, not too late, and it has been a while since I watched anything.

The opening note lands perfectly:

Psalm 91

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For he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways.

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They shall bear thee up in their hands, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone.

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Thou shalt tread upon the lion and adder, the young lion and the dragon shalt thou trample under feet.

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Because he hath set his love upon me, therefore will I deliver him. I will set him on high, because he hath known my name.

I love that blank opening: empty landscape, sound already there before anything happens. Then it waits just long enough. The van crossing that space grabs you, and the music settles in naturally.

The house facing west is a great detail. She feels determined and upset from the start. I also really like the contrast in the two leads: posh versus not-so-posh.

Tone & Themes

I wasn’t keen on some of the overt name drops (Kabbalah, Gnosticism, delirium tremens), but the emotional core works.

He is recently off alcohol and clearly in withdrawal, in an altered state. It feels like he is deliberately using that as part of the process: opening himself up, pushing toward something trippier and more dangerous.

The film gets the brutal dynamic of child loss right. It feels raw rather than melodramatic.

Arms outstretched toward light was an interesting image, almost cross-like. Worth looking up in relation to spell protection and ritual posture.

Details / Observations

• The plant he cuts looks like hogweed leaves, but it doesn’t seem to be the same plant he later places in the room.
• Throwing in a random dog with maggots adds to the world-of-decay texture.
• The magic-square material needs a proper follow-up read: five circles, five elements, Abramelin correspondences, wood, fire, blackness, and the tangible.
• Earth, metal, and water feel like part of that ritual logic.
• The nameless triangle concept reads like a psychological containment device: a structure to stop you going mad.
• The square evokes urges and baseness.
• What do black birds hitting windows signify in this context?
• The circle markings on the floor are absolutely beautiful.

Reference for later reading: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Book_of_Abramelin#Abramelin_operation

Pacing / Experience

At 41 minutes in, it is calm, anxious, and never overwhelming. Good ride. Comparable to that Project 76 kind of pace: a little disconnected, but in a good way.

Not scary yet.

Mr Solomon reference. Best line of the film for me:

Science describes the least of everything. Religion describes the endless waves of “is it real or is it not.”

Around the 1-hour mark, the scare factor finally starts.

Shift and Interpretation

This is one of those films where you weave the plot after it ends rather than receiving neat answers in the moment.

Who was the man the boy spoke of?

“I miss my sister.” “Sofia, I’m…”

That uncertainty is part of what keeps it lingering.

Ending Thoughts

The ending is slightly crass and kitsch in places, especially the animation, but still not enough to undo the film.

It stays dry, simple to intake, unsettling, and emotionally honest. It is not amazing, but it is good enough and close to being genuinely great.

Score

I’d give it a 3.5/5.

• Visuals: contained and believable until the end; a little forced in spots, but consistent.
• Mental depth: sits around a 2 for most of the runtime, then flips into a Schrödinger’s 4-or-2 at the end depending on interpretation.
• Story: interesting throughout.
• Achievement vs. overall scale: for what it achieved, it feels like a 5; in relative terms against everything else, 3.5 feels fair.

It felt close to good.