Eye For Film >> Movies >> I Saw The Face Of God In The Jet Wash (2025) Film Review
Enys Men director Mark Jenkin puts his distinctive, hand processed Super 8 style to video diary use in a short film, which ruminates on his various travels down the years to destinations ranging from the Isle of Man to Brittany and Los Angeles via his stream-of-consciousness voiceover.
Within his shaggy dog collage he finds unusual connections, including everything from derelict swimming pools to retired cyclist Mark Cavendish to a French standing stone that Jenkin swears moves overnight.
As always, his technique lends the film stock a nostalgia that means much of it feels as though it comes from an analogue archive, a sensation sometimes added to by his own recollections of links between his past and the moment in which he shot the film. The intertitles, which bear random chapter titles, feel a little bit on the winking side but I’m sure he’d be the first person to tell you that every journey needs something to break it.
Beyond the personal observations, inspirational ideas for films bubble up, including for the recently premiered Rose Of Nevada or the wish that he could remake The Birds while remaining truer to Daphne Du Maurier’s book than Alfred Hitchcock – a tantalising prospect the more you think about it.
As a ramble through ephemera, it won’t be for everyone but there’s a beguiling quality to many of the moments, from people on a beach to strangers on a train, and plenty of humour in his observations about his own career. You may not see the face of God, but it’s a film so packed with images and ideas that it’s likely you’ll see some sort of connection to your own experience.
Reviewed on: 02 Jan 2026
