The Twisted Life of Elva

Enclosure

Overview

Set in rural 17th-century England at the beginning of the Enclosure Acts, a series of legal maneuvers that seized communally used farmlands and privatized property ownership, Enclosure follows a fictional group of purloining travelers who call themselves the Famlee. Led by an alchemist leader, Jaccko, the group scheme to attain land through the transfer of fraudulent paper currency, manipulating unsuspecting farmers into forfeiting their autonomy. The most valuable member of The Famlee is Recent, a teenage girl trained to learn the behaviors, rituals, and shibboleths of the community in order to exploit their anxieties. Recent’s meaning within the film is exaggerated by our contemporary understanding of the relationship between capitalism and gendered division of labor; accomplice to Jaccko’s trickery, the girl becomes co-conspirator in her own entrapment.