Saint Maud Review (Film, 2021)
Content warning: blood, gore, hospital/surgical/medical footage, foul language, smoking, alcohol abuse, self-harm, death by suicide (discussed), sexual content, violence against women
Editorial note: Saint Maud is an extreme psychological weird fiction film. It features closeups of cuts, scars, medical needle injections, and small acts of self-harm. It is a religious horror film featuring palliative care for a cancer patient. Please be safe if you choose to engage with this picture.
Saint Maud is a challenging film. There’s no point being coy about it. Writer/director Rose Glass’ debut feature is weird fiction. It shifts between horror, thriller, erotica, and suspense through a darkly critical lens forged of religious trauma.
Saint Maud is the story of Maud, a deeply religious young woman who finds a purpose from God after a traumatic incident working at a hospital. She now lives to serve her Catholic faith through sacrifice. Maud even switched to a career in palliative care to do more meaningful work. Her newest client is Amanda, a stage four cancer patient coping with the end of her career as a dancer and choreographer and the end of her life. Maud makes it her life’s work to save Amanda’s soul.
This would be enough story for a solid indie drama that burns up the festival circuit. Rose Glass wants more. Saint Maud is a disturbing, unpredictable journey through obsession, deflection, and detachment. The story and sound shift from scene to scene to explore every angle on this unexpected story.
The most disturbing motif is self-flagellation. Maud’s brand of Catholicism is rigid in outdated dogma. She believes she needs to repent for her sins through pain. If she does wrong, she must suffer. It reminds me of Marina de Van’s Dans ma peau (In My Skin) in its approach to the violence. You see just enough to know it happens and to be terrified by its escalation.
This is an art film with no easy answers or entry. I’m blown away by its intelligence, its creativity, and its audacity, but I feel like I’ve barely scratched the surface after watching it multiple times. The more I dig, the more I uncover, but the more I uncover, the more I’m afraid of sharing in this form. The problem with Saint Maud is not the film itself but the limitations traditional approaches to marketing and criticism place on contemporary cinema. Saint Maud is so beyond the scope of what we experience in narrative filmmaking that it becomes a challenge to even find an angle to discuss and recommend it from.
What I can confidently say is Saint Maud has its own voice. Rose Glass has conceived a story never told before that is connected not by plot, genre, or style but by tone. It is an experience not to be missed if you can handle more extreme horror or weird fiction.
Saint Maud is streaming on Hulu Plus.
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