Luz silenciosa

There are two ways of making a movie genius. One way is you make it an exciting storytelling, with lots of twists, surprises and well placed moments of tension turned to gold by great acting and tasteful camera angles and lighting.

The other way is this.

People will say this movie is boring. It is. They will say it drags itself. It does.

But while it does, it becomes painstakingly realistic. An average Joe doesn't spend his life fighting terrorists and being tossed around by the explosions he can't avoid, and while an average Joe can have a war land on his head or a ship sink under his feet, the really unlucky Joe will spend his life trying to make a living with no real chances of a worldwide tragedy turning him into a martyr or a hero.

"Stellet Licht" doesn't feed you the story. The key to deciphering this movie is that you must notice most shots are in a sort of "point of view" mode that keeps telling you "this could be you. What would you think right now? What would you do?".

And while it doesn't feed you everything, actions and dialogues, no matter how simple they sound at first are deeply meaningful and provide amazing food for thought. Marshall MacLuhan once described movies as "hot" media, demanding attention to find the meaning while leaving little space for your own participation as most is fed to you. A movie like "The Preadator" is hot; it doesn't immerse you as much as it attacks your senses of hearing and seeing.

In "Stellet Licht" while visuals and sound are of crucial importance in the beauty of the shots, the movie keeps a constant dialogue with the viewer and it's this viewer who ends up making a great part of the movie. This would be the definition of a "cool" media. In the end, everybody will have seen this movie differently and it will be a very intimate experience if only you lay the popcorn's aside and think about what is being shown to you.

Watch it with your significant other and you will realize there is so much to talk about, unlike with many other movies that leave you with trivialities and little more. So "Stellet Licht" is more than amazing story telling, it's what a dear friend of mine calls art: something that intertwines and confuses itself with real life.

If not for everybody, certainly not for those who expect a movie to spoon feed them and are not willing to incorporate and reinterpret the experience, but for those who are willing to think and discuss some of the strong subjects of this movie, "Stellet Licht" is a not just a movie, but an enlightening experience.

With Stellet Licht, Mexican director Carlos Reygadas follows a different path from his previous films. Reygadas tells a very simple and age-old story: the choice of a man between two women. However, it's his unique vision of life what makes this film stand out from the hundreds of films made with this subject matter.

A contained and wonderful Cornelio Wall delivers a range of feelings, resting almost entirely in his expressive eyes. His excellent performance fits perfectly with the quiet and slow pace of the film. The rest of the cast is also great, with really natural performances throughout the film.

The cinematography and editing are also gorgeous, developing an unique pace and look to the film that would have bored in any other film. While the pace of the film is extremely slow, the audience gets used to it, preventing boredom from affecting the viewers, as it normally occurs with other slowly-paced films.

The film happens in the secluded Menonite settlement of the beautiful state of Chihuahua, introducing us to a world completely different from ours, but the universal feeling of the story makes us realize that, regardless of the differences between different groups of people, we are all similar.

The six-minute opening shot of Silent Light depicts the starry night sky giving way, slowly but relentlessly, to the nascent light of the early morning sun. This shot could in itself serve as a captivating short film but in its particular context it serves most obviously to set the overall pace for this film by the Mexican director Carlos Reygadas: slow.

The cast of Silent Light consists primarily of non-actors drawn from the Menonite religious community in which the film is set. Their fine performances create a believable and frequently captivating world for the viewer. We are given insights into the day-to-day lives of the family as the story slowly develops in stages, grimly charting the inexorable demise of the relationship between husband Johan and wife Esther.

Around the stark central narrative there are some charming scenes and some superb camera work. Even the scenes where the children playing in the pond are all-too-aware of the presence of the camera carry a certain fascination. Having said that there are too many shots where the camera lingers to seemingly little effect, except to make the viewer feel distinctly uncomfortable (as one other reviewer has pointed out, there is something rather unnerving about the kissing scene involving Johan and Marianne).

I also feel compelled to add that there is a rather bizarre twist at the end of what would otherwise be a straightforward and powerful story. For me this threw into some confusion the preceding two hours of film and left the story hanging on an oddly unsatisfactory note. Despite the slow pacing and somewhat bewildering ending this is a strong, distinctive piece of film-making and I would recommend that it be viewed in a cinema rather than on the small screen so as to get the best of some superb camera-work.

Silent Light (2007)

I don't think you should pre-judge this film by director Carlos Reygadas's known style--lots of long, matter of fact takes, and mostly amateur actors. This is a Mexican film, and some Spanish language appears, but most of it is in a Mennonite dialect, a kind of country German carried over by Russian immigrants. Seeing these simple people from the inside is a large part of the interest here, even though it's not a documentary. Reygadas makes it a point to get the pace of their lives, which is apparently very slow!

It's odd to see such deliberate photography in the mold of Ozu, with the still camera and the offscreen activity now and then, and to realize how difficult it is to pull that off. Only because it doesn't quite work here. It becomes an affectation, even so that the curvature of the widescreen (and anamorphic, I think) photography becomes a distraction. The approach, however, makes for a very quiet movie, viscerally, and because of that it penetrates the characters and gets to some moving issues.

It's a deeply felt story, for sure, and that was enough to make me want to watch it. But there were times when I felt like I was sitting it out through conviction. It almost forced you to feel sad, and to share the loneliness of these country folk who struggle on their farms not to survive, but to understand love and meaning. Heavy stuff, and laid out with amazing seriousness. And also shown in clear, appreciative views.

You will get the feeling sometimes that there ought to be someone out in this forlorn landscape who is happy, and who has some sense of quick wit. But apparently not! It's a despondent experience, and that actually is what I liked about it. But I'm not sure it is enough, this drawn out sadness alone, with lots of ambient droning sounds (very vivid) overwhelms the apparent "plot" of a love that isn't appropriate.

Is it good? I think some people will totally love it. I'd recommend it for those who want to really lose themselves in another world, in realistic and un adorned terms, a world that is unspectacular on the surface, and very probing and beautiful within.

It is a very good film. This is contemplation cinema, with beautiful landscapes and really touching scenes. Although the argument isn't an innovative one, the context and the way the director captures its work empowers the story and succeeds in maintaining viewers attention despite the long shots that often makes the spectator to run out of patience, to get distracted or bored. Innovative context. The first movie about Mexican mennonites (40 000)in their own language (plautietsch)played by real mennonites that aren't real actors. It shows in an honest way their life style in the northern Mexican state of Chihuahua, how they live almost without interacting with Spanish speaking mexicans. Up to now, definitely Carlos Reygadas best film. I'm not saying that everybody would enjoy this film, but to me it is an excellent movie and I broadly recommend it. Its awards are richly deserved. "Stellet Licht" is a work of art.