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'Silent Light' a change of pace
Reygadas offers calm, moving tale of faith

By STEVEN SNYDER - TimeOut Film Critic

November 13, 2009

 
Here is a moving, heartbreaking story, about souls trapped on Earth while they think only of the heavens. It’s a story about a crisis of faith, a crisis of love and how fear and guilt can render men insane.

All playing out in a hushed whisper.

"Silent Light" surveys the fallout of two families upended by three star-crossed lovers. We meet Johan (Cornelio Wall Fehr) and Esther (Miriam Toews) as they preside silently over morning prayer and a family breakfast in a remote Mexican Mennonite community.

The scene is an image of calm, contemplative purity – a family of nine breaking bread as the seconds tick by (each of which can be heard on a nearby ticking clock). But when mom packs up the kids and heads into town, dad sits back down and begins to bawl.

But all is not well in the land of the pure.

Johan has fallen hopelessly in love with Marianne (Maria Pankratz), the wife and mother of another perfect family. And as Johan confesses his adulterous affections to his father, it’s clear that this father of seven knows not what to do. As Johan puts it, he knows that God has bound him to Esther, but how can it possibly be serving the will of his master, to turn away from a love that seems so holy?

We see the emotions flow when Johan and Marianne meet one day in a wide open field, the setting sun shining through them as they hold each another in secret – hidden from everyone but the Creator.

That intimate scene of ecstasy contrasts sharply with a later scene in a field, when Johan and Esther – to whom he has told everything – finally accept the fact that their relationship must end. As she clings to a tree in a downpour, Reygadas pushes closer and closer with his camera, demanding from Esther the guttural cries of a woman who has lost everything.

Whereas Hollywood would typically film such a scene of loss with copious edits and a soaring orchestral score, Reygadas remains fixed on a broken face for what feels like an eternity.

A death among this love triangle changes everything. What once for Johan was a formal, philosophical debate about hearts and faith has now become tangible. A person has died due to his infidelity, and the guilt rushing up from within is clearly staggering.

What once for Johan was a warm and loving sun and a rolling and hopeful landscape have instead become harsh and claustrophobic. During one late embrace in "Silent Light," a character reaches up to blot out the glare of the sun, shielding the moment from judgment by the heavens.

Those unfamiliar with Reygadas’ works, one of the most exciting Mexican filmmakers working today, may not realize the degree to which "Silent Light" is a change of pace for the young director.

The richly-stylized "Japon" captured the country’s social ills with the story of a suicidal artist and the uneducated country woman who winds up teaching him a thing or two about character. The provocative "Battle of Heaven" was startling precisely for its lack of narrative and performances that were utterly stripped of expression – not to mention its explosive, gratuitous sexuality.

His progression towards minimalist filmmaking has reached perfection with "Silent Light," which was the co-winner of the 2007 Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival.

It does not tell us things so much as observe in silence, meditating on the meaning of all these silly mortals, focused only on the afterlife.

E-mail: SnyderReviews@hotmail.com