Plot

A woman finds a camera on a hike.

After listening to a self-help audio-book in a car, a young woman takes a hike in the woods. On her own, she takes pictures and enjoys the quiet. But when she reaches the Enchanted Cove waterfall, she discovers the body of a dead man who has fallen in the water.

Calling 911 and then pulling the body out of the water, she also discovers a camera and tripod nearby, which she gathers up to give to the police. But later at home, she discovers that she has forgotten to hand it over. Curious for clues about what happened, she watches the footage, which reveals unexpected truths about the man who died.

Directed and written by Jeff Kardesch, this elusive, teasing short mystery has a dark, melancholic undertow, beginning with the voyeuristic, somewhat detached opening shot of its main character in her car, listening to self-help. The atmosphere around the woman is isolating and lonely, with the woman hiking alone and avoiding the presence of other hikers on the trail. And when she discovers a dead body in the basin of a waterfall, it only adds to the overall atmosphere of existential alienation.

The storytelling deftly builds a mystery, first capturing the eeriness and sinister pall of discovering a dead body and the woman's struggles to bring it to shore and deal with the police. The cinematography is shadowy, often still and careworn; the score features dissonant washes of electronic sound. The style is reminiscent of Scandi-noir, telegraphing a kind of unease below the surfaces of life and constructing questions of the man himself and just what led to his death, which is piqued even more when the woman discovers a camera and tripod nearby.

Actor Zoe Graham's character is a mystery herself, with little dialogue that reveals who she is, though Graham conveys the sense of depression or sadness underlying the woman's rote actions. The few clues we have -- the way her roommates don't speak to her when she comes home, or the tired way she chugs juice from the refrigerator -- also add to the woman's detachment. By the time her curiosity gets the better of her and she decides to watch whatever footage is on the camera, we're expecting something dark and disturbing to crown the strange mystery that has been building up, both about the man and perhaps the hiker herself.

The great trick of "Enchanted Cove" is that its truth is stranger and more idiosyncratic than anyone could have thought, with a reveal that doesn't just change our understanding of a character, but of the story itself. (You thought you were watching a mystery thriller, but instead it's... something else.) Instead of suspending our disbelief, we have to sit with that disbelief for some time, as the film performs some ironic, absurdist sleight-of-hand, twisting from one genre to another. Tantalizing, sly and refusing to give up its meaning easily, the film is a mystery, but the biggest mystery of all is the people themselves, in all their preening, eager drives for meaning, love, connection or validation.