Arnold
Review: Silent Light
Cows begin to moo, and birds chirp frantically, all off screen. Suddenly the mooing begins to sound painful, as though the cows are screaming. The sound continues through the cut as you see the family in their kitchen heads bowed in prayer. They sit silently as the retching sound of the cows, the sereneness of the birds are crickets are joined by the incessant ticking of the clock on the wall. Johan (Cornelio Wall), the father of the family, raises his head after many minutes of silent prayer and says “Amen.” Thus begins Reygadas (Japon, Battle in Heaven) beautiful opus. A simplistic, yet incredibly nuanced meditation on redemption and family, reminiscent of Tarkovsky or the great family dramas of Bergman.
The story tracks the internal life of Johan, a married Mennonite man, with seven children. Johan has fallen in love with another woman, Marianne (Maria Pankratz), and is tormented because he believes that God wants him to be with Marianne, but he fears the consequences of leaving his wife, Esther (Miriam Toews), and children.
With shots that last for up to ten minutes, unedited, the film takes it’s time throughout the nearly two and half hours of running time. The cinematography creates the perfect tone for the story. The tortoise paced tracking shots that define almost every scene often reveal more about the tormented nature of the characters than the dialogue ever does. The visual themes and tropes dominate the screen with their nuance, making the film an esoteric experience in cinematic art. A notion that Reygadas does not deny as he has frequently cited his belief that cinema should not be literature, or story, but something else, just cinema.
The result is a beautiful lyrical film. Reygadas best film to date. As usual he pulls engaging, heart-felt performances from these non-actors. Especially impressive is Wall who plays the enduringly confused Johan. There is an endearing subtlety in his ability to oscillate from the divided and simple man of the opening scene to the man who drives his pickup in circles around a friend while belting a Mexican love song out of his window. His great performance is part of what makes this film pull together into the gripping film that it is. Silent Light has more than earned every accolade heaped upon it, and Carlos Reygadas has again proved that he is a filmmaker to watch, while further separating himself from the rest of Mexican cinema.
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