The wanting mare

The Wanting Pond is one of the best first films seen in a long time and seems to have been made with a true love for cinema and a willingness to offer a very personal universe for writer and director Nicholas Ashe Bateman. Fascinating, original and disturbing can thus most soberly describe this film, which easily stands out as an intimate and dramatic fantasy epic that takes place over more than thirty-five years. Nicholas Ashe Bateman supervised visual effects on several films (Free Solo (2018), Wendy (2020) and soon Peter Pan & Wendy and The Green Knight (2021)).

Filmed in a totally independent way, The Wanting Pond took no less than five long years to create a digital world marked by sprawling panoramas and fantastic views. Most of the scenes in this film were shot in a warehouse in Paterson, New Jersey. The design of this film involved hundreds of complex visual effects that blend digital landscapes and physical reality, bringing the fantastic city of Whithren and its big world to life. The great aesthetic beauty of this film not only commands respect but also makes The Wanting Pond a revolutionary and ambitious film.

Certainly the plot would have deserved to be simplified at times in order to allow for easier immersion and give greater psychological depth to the character. The complexity of the story means that this film requires the audience's utmost attention in order to grasp its subtlety. Nevertheless, The Wanting mare deserves to be discovered and above all marks a very promising directorial debut for writer and director Nicholas Ashe Bateman.

The Wanting mare
Written and directed by Nicholas Ashe Bateman
Produced by Nicholas Ashe Bateman, Shoaib Iqbal, Jeff Walker
Starring Jordan Monaghan, Josh Clark, Yasamin Keshtkar, Edmond Cofie, Christine Kellogg-Darrin, Nicholas Ashe, Maxine Muster, Ashleigh Nutt
Music by Aaron Boudreaux
Cinematography: David A. Ross
Edited by Nicholas Ashe Bateman
Distributed by Gravitas Ventures
Release date: February 5, 2021 (USA)
Running time: 88 minutes

Seen on January 24, 2021 (press link)

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