Friday, May 12, 2023

"The Silence" "a short film)


   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.       

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