‘The Wanting Mare’—A Masterclass In Low-Budget Worldbuilding: Review

In the eternally sweltering city of Whithren, Moira (Jordan Monaghan) dreams of an old world she never knew, and a new life in the icy Levithen across the sea. But a chance meeting with a young man (Nicholas Ashe Bateman) might turn her dream into reality in this visually striking sci-fi debut.

★★★✰✰

The behind-the-scenes documentary released alongside The Wanting Mare refers to the film as a ‘small epic,’ and it’s difficult to think of a more fitting description. It’s a film which couldn’t have been made ten, or even six years ago, when production began. A visual effects-heavy sci-fi story set on a far-flung world made by a first-time filmmaker on a shoe-string budget. And, achieved largely through ample use of blue screen and a subscription to Adobe After Effects, it’s not just a small epic: it’s one built in a warehouse.

Not that any of that would be apparent on first viewing, however. Multi-hyphenate director Nicholas Ashe Bateman, perhaps best known for his visual effects work on last year’s The Green Knight, has painted these backdrops with more care and attention than the highest-budget blockbuster can muster, to the point where the settings are genuinely indistinguishable from location shoots. As a feat of technical artistry alone, The Wanting Mare is little short of astounding.

The illusion is helped, perhaps, by the lighting. “Dreamlike” is a phrase thrown around a lot in film discourse, but here any other description would seem, well, wanting. The red glare of a spotlight-like sunset and the blue of some aggressively bright fairy-lights contribute to the otherworldliness of it all, and the near-complete absence of shadows (possibly down more to the methods of production than by design) has a distancing effect which jars with the implied intimacy of the predominantly handheld camerawork. The result is not uncanny valley—it’s far too beautiful for that—but rather a very definite sense that this place lives somewhere outside the realms of reality, or that the camera is only half-remembering the events of the story as it recalls them.

This might generously explain why said story is quite as light as it is. The structure of Whithren’s society is built around the annual export of wild horses to its sister city, Levithen, via a ferry for which everyone wants a ticket. This means its inhabitants spend most of their time waiting around for the ship to arrive which, when the film’s timeline spans out over decades, rather than weeks, makes for less than compelling drama. There are interesting ideas sprinkled liberally throughout, but more often than not they’re expressed in a single line of dialogue and then abandoned.

Mare’s characters, too, suffer a similar fate, a generation-spanning narrative leaving the promising performances little time to grow within the constraints of an 89-minute running time. Combined with a disorienting and noticeably clunky editing style, the film speeds along at a breakneck pace while very little seems to be actually happening to push the story forward. The scenery and the performances are compelling enough that it’s a shame the camera and the script don’t give them the space to breath.

Despite all that, there’s a palpable sense of melancholia about Bateman’s debut. It’s not immediately clear where it comes from—perhaps it’s the visuals, or maybe the score, which is applied sparingly but exquisitely throughout. Or maybe it’s the act of watching characters with little to do, waiting for something better to come over the horizon. And surely, it’s difficult to condemn The Wanting Mare when its biggest sin is that it leaves its audience wanting more.

The Verdict

An extraordinary feat of worldbuilding on a micro-budget, a slim plot and underdeveloped characters hold back what is otherwise an exciting glimpse into the possibilities of truly twenty-first-century filmmaking.

Words by James Harvey

The Wanting Mare is available to download now.

Support The Indiependent

We’re trying to raise £200 a month to help cover our operational costs. This includes our ‘Writer of the Month’ awards, where we recognise the amazing work produced by our contributor team. If you’ve enjoyed reading our site, we’d really appreciate it if you could donate to The Indiependent. Whether you can give £1 or £10, you’d be making a huge difference to our small team.