Sometimes I don’t have time to watch two-hour films. “The Silence” last 15 minutes. If you can make an impactful film within fifteen minutes, you’re doing well. Professional critics thought so too for “The Silence” was nominated in short categories at film festivals.
The plot? Well, there is no plot, a condition
which corresponds pretty much to real life.
It’s only in books and movies that life has a plot. We will find out
while watching this film that the two characters of consequence, a mother and
daughter, are in free-fall.
Opening scene is a waiting room in what we soon find out is
a hospital. A cool and fateful mood is established with blue filters. There is
no music, a quiet austerity dominates.
Twelve or thirteen-year-old Fatma (yes, that’s the correct
spelling) and her Kurdish mother are sitting on plastic airport style seats
along with seven or eight others waiting to be seen by a doctor. Fatma’s mother wears a head scarf, according to her
Kurdish custom. There is a language
problem.
Location is Italy but that matters not. It just happens to
be where the filmmakers were living. Fatma’s mother is grievously ill,
according to the doctors; she’s got an advanced stage of breast cancer. The
doctors call for immediate hospitalization.
Devastating news to Fatima and her mother.
Fatima and her mother are grimly quiet throughout. The acting is realistic, understated, unsentimental. This is what makes it work. If given the Lifetime treatment with cascades of tears and anguished sobs, it wouldn’t work.
Fatma has a nervous habit of picking at her
fingernails, one of two signs of emotional distress. The other is when she puts
her fingers into her ears because she’s a child and can’t bear to hear any
more.
Film ends with Fatma and her mother staring into a future which may not be one. There is no mention of husband or brother or anyone who might provide support.
Why would you watch this film? I don’t know, maybe to confirm your frailty.
