Actualités

Rolf de Heer's feature is a sort of high-concept art film, an exploration of childhood told entirely through the perspective of an emotionally scarred 7-year-old girl. Although it has an undeniable power and the writer-director demonstrates a truly empathetic understanding of a child's inner life, "The Quiet Room" is an easier film to appreciate than actually sit through. Not exactly a commercial item, it will no doubt serve as a valuable tool for therapists and social workers.

The unnamed girl lives a typically comfortable middle-class life in Australia, where she lives with her mother (Celine O'Leary) and father (Paul Blackwell). There is a problem, however; she doesn't speak, no doubt in response to the emotional turmoil caused by her parents' disintegrating marriage. The audience is privy to her thoughts, thanks to an unceasing voice-over narration in which she expresses the ideas and feelings that her parents can only guess at. Alternately amusing, banal and startling, her free-associative monologue serves as a veritable map to her battered psyche.

The problem with the film is that the girl's childlike view of the world, no matter how well delineated, quickly proves monotonous.

"The Quiet Room" would have worked well as a short, but at 91 minutes, only those truly interested in child psychology or in full touch with the inner child in themselves will be able to maintain interest.

Expertly photographed and directed with a subtle intensity, the film benefits from Chloe Ferguson's natural and unaffected performance, the best by a child actor in recent memory.

THE QUIET ROOM

A Fine Line Features

A Vertigo/Fandango production

Director-screenwriter Rolf de Heer

Producers Domenico Procacci, Rolf de Heer

Director of photography Tony Clark

Editor Tania Nehme

Music Graham Tardif

Color/stereo

Cast:

Mother Celine O'Leary

Father Paul Blackwell

Girl, age 7 Chloe Ferguson

Girl, age 3 Phoebe Ferguson

Running time -- 91 minutes

MPAA rating: PG...