Silent Light (Mexico/France/Netherlands/Germany, 2008, C. Reygadas)

Ben sed:

I suppose this is the sort of film fans of Terrence Malick believe he makes when, in fact, he completely fails to do so. This is, of course, a swipe at Malick but it is also a back-handed compliment to Silent Light. It's a beautiful film. Not merely pretty eye-candy, like Malick makes. It's exquisite as a narrative and packed with delicate imagery. But it sure ain't Dryer neither, whose Ordet (1955) is the obvious template for Silent Light. It's not a full-out remake of Ordet, but it is not a mere homage either. Whatever the degree to which it is Ordet Again, however; compared to the original, Silent Light is Silent Lite.

This has to do with the difference between the desire to be given that old time religion and the desire to have your cup runneth over with new age spiritualism. Silent Light takes an almost secular, personal psychological approach to its thematic concerns. The force of theologically grounded faith or lack thereof is only a faint treble figure in the counterpoint, not an inescapable bass line. In Ordet, it is not just an inescapable bass line. Jesus, it's the whole score! The film is a social expansion of what in The Passion of Joan of Arc is literally distilled down to the very flesh of a single woman's face; namely, that only the pure of heart have real faith.

In case this sounds as if I am necessarily dissatisfied by any encounter with metaphysics that is not "heavy," let me say that Silent Light does not achieve the degree of excruciatingly meaningful yet puff-pastry lightness of Kim Ki-duk at his metaphysical best. What is at stake is not an aesthetic timbre but an ontological commitment empirically demonstrated. What actually happens in Silent Light? Literally brought back from the dead? Mistakenly thought to be dead but really just comatose? A ruse concocted by the women to bring the man back to his family? It's entirely indeterminate. I take this intentional ambiguity to be an expression of new age spiritualism.

New age spiritualism is to be applauded for not encouraging bloodshed but at the same time it is itself so much bloodless bullshit at the end of the day. Give me that old-time religion. Mealy-mouthed metaphysical musings that decline to posit any sort of deity - not necessarily monotheistic, pantheistic entities or even animistic fairies will do - are not allowed to borrow the symbolic archetypes and narrative tropes that in theistic religion compel it to answer the fundamental questions that new age spiritualism does not even have enough hemoglobin to ask. Literally brought back from the dead? Mistakenly thought to be dead but really just comatose? A ruse concocted by the women to bring the man back to his family? It matters. It really matters folks. Because the man on the street needs a miracle.

Ordet delivers a miracle. It's ontological commitment is empirically demonstrated. The woman is literally brought back from the dead. She is resurrected because she really believed and her nutty brother-in-law really believed and her sweet daughter really believed, these three having just enough innocent faith to cover the whole community - indeed, to reunite the community as a whole; previously divided by sectarianism, disbelief and doubt, as well as some secularism and virginal ignorance to boot. The remarkable thing about Ordet, is that it is about a collective and public conversion or salvation by way of a miracle that satisfies the demands of empiricism properly understood. Rather than some purely subjective and individualistic miracle, Dryer stares down the utter absence of generally acknowledged divine revelation in the modern age and presents an objectively corroborated miraculous experience as a matter of fact perceptible by common sense.

I repeat, Silent Light is a beautiful film. The reviewers who found the long shots frustrating or even boring are
aesthetic dullards. And even though I must ultimately dismiss the film theologically, I do want to acknowledge that the redemption coming off the story moved me. With respect to this, it reminded me of Babet's Feast in that both films advance the moral validity of physical being and sensual love in the context of an otherwise erotically austere social environment that nevertheless has its own equally valid expressions of togetherness and trust. The most uplifting aspect of Silent Light for me is the final coming together of the two women.

But this is meager erotic stuff compared to the truly awesome power of God's Love in plain view for all to witness. Ordet delivers nothing less than the fear and trembling that must necessarily attend the observation of a miracle. The faithful are born again and the faith of all those who had lost their way is born again too.

And Dan:

While I hear what you are saying about Silent Light’s new agey-ness, I think you undersell the film’s emotional potency. No doubt, the spiritual aspect of this community is not as clearly defined as that in Ordet; in fact, there is little overt reference to the religious aspect of this community, and this does seem an odd choice for a film dealing with matters this potentially incediary, particularly when it appears that a great many people in this tiny Mennonite community appear to be aware of the adulterous relationship that forms the central conflict of this drama. You would think a community this tight knit, and founded on a faith that prohibits such behaviour and threatens eternal damnation for those who engage it in would be a bit more concerned about matters of this sort, and attempt to intervene, if not for the sake of the trangressors, then for the sake of those transgressed--the wife and six children. Stranges days indeed. Most peculiar, mama. Further, I agree that this lack of moral clarity muddies the film's miracle, while the very same clarity and certainty is at the very essence of Dreyer's Ordet (more or Ordet in my next review).

Still, despite this, writer/director Carlos Reygadas's film does place characters at great risk and terrible consequences do rain down on the choices they make in this life. That there are no villains here does not mean that there are no heroes or victims. Johan adores his children and loves his wife Esther, and they clearly feel the same way about him; however, he is drawn to Marianne and she to him. Scenes of domestic happiness are sprinkled throughout the film, as we see this is not a miserable situation that Johan is in, but a deeply loving one. The opening scene at the breakfast table, and a later familial bathing scene at a local watering hole, a moment of great langour and charm, are particular standouts, as everyday moments capture the abiding affection that connects everyone in the clan. It does not make things easier that all three of the central characters are decent people. The husband and his lover have clearly fallen under a love spell, become victims of their compulsion perhaps, and as a result of their inability or unwillingness to sacrifice this love for the good of the man’s family, made a victim out of the wife, who knows of the affair, and tries to live with it, but in the end finds that she cannot.

Throughout the film, Johan struggles with his faith, wondering if his deep passion for Marianne, depicted in some very effectively sensually charged and erotic scenes, is evidence of Satan's hand at work, but ultimately finding himself powerless to walk away from it, as Marianne attempts to do the right thing and unearth the strength to send Johan on his way, and back into the arms of his wife. Scenes involving these three characters are the emotional highlights of the film, as each (Cornelio Wall as Johan, Miriam Toews as his wife and Maria Pankratz as Marianne) delivers an honest and affecting performance that casts their character's torment in high relief. When a heartbroken Marian holds her hand up to the sun (drawing on its power?) to send Johan back to his wife, or Johan breaks into a weeping jag at the breakfast table, and later when Esther wails her pain in the woods, it is hard not to be both shaken and moved by the agony of their situation.

There is a weirdly alien nature to the film, as it is set amongst a small Mennonite community in northern Mexico, a group that clings to their tenets of their faith desperately, as tiny religious minorities are wont to do. They also speak in a strange Germanic dialect that further alienates them from the Spanish speaking world that threatens to engulf them. In one amazing and disorienting passage, the characters wander around a suddenly and inexplicably snow blanketed landscape, only to return to the familiar sunbaked terrain in the next scene.. The amateur cast is pulled from the actual community, and while there is some variety in the quality of the performances, it is a solid strategy. There is a true sense of verite about this cinematic choice.

The film’s bookends are also worthy of note. They work thematically, emphasizing the inevitability of time’s passage, the rhythms of pastoral life and labour, and the harmonious beauty that is awakened and put to sleep over the course of each day. Cinematographer Alexis Zabe delivers some widescreen shots of rare beauty, as the camera gently strokes the landscape in quiet pans, while sunspots flare on the lens to create a near three-dimensional effect, while the film unfolds quietly, via a series of extended takes which invite us to settle into the this world, and take on these people's woes. The film's aesthetics are remarkable.

So, while I concede you are onto something regarding the liteness of this film's silence, the movie also carries some weight, packing a real emotional wallop, as well bragging some of the most remarkably sensual imagery and cinematography of recent memory. And yes, the final connection between the two women at the film's climax is well-earned and quietly cathartic. Silent Light is more than just all right with me.