Era el Cielo

A good story told at a leisurely pace but with little waste. Diana's reasons for keeping the rape from Mario become clear in a naturalistic way, rather than being served up on a plate. Likewise Mario's inaction and smoldering desire for revenge. The weaknesses of his amateur sleuthing and her inability to get rid of evidence of the rape are minor niggles. Highlights include a sports coach sitting on the sideline while Mario pours his resentment into his children's tennis lesson, suspense about his first revenge attempt as it is delayed repeatedly, and the redemptive final scene, demonstrating the couple's overriding love. My first experience of Uruguayan cinema, and what a treat it was.

Very good movie that reminds you of the best work of Claude Chabrol (not that there is any intention to imitate Chabrol). The violence that starts the action has a hard edge at the beginning, then its contours become more ambiguous; as in real life, facts may be seen in more than one way, and their interpretation depends on one's previous knowledge, that changes with time. The unintended horrors of vengeance are clearly shown.

Brazilian director Marco Dutra does an excellent job, and action moves forward smoothly. In my opinion, the movie dwells a little too much (and a little unconvincingly) on the main character's psychology, which may reflect the usual problems of translating a novel (by Argentinian Sergio Bizzio, who also wrote the script) into a screenplay.

Excellent work by Argentinian Leonardo Sbaraglia and Brazilian Carolina Dieckmann, the rest of the cast at the same level. The movie is an Argentinian-Brazilian coproduction and the scenario is Montevideo. halfway between the two countries. The title The Silence of the Sky is an exact translation of the Portuguese original; in Argentina the movie was titled "Era el Cielo" (it was the sky). Perhaps a little is lost in translation here since the Portuguese "céu" and the Spanish "cielo" both mean "sky" but also mean "heaven."

You can catch another excellent movie by Dutra, Hard Labor (2011) in the rental services. There are several movies based on Bizzio's writing or scripted by him, among them "Un Amor" (2011) directed by Paula Hernández and "XXY" (2007) directed by Lucía Puenzo.

Here's what you should know: this movie is one of the tough ones. And I mean that in the best way possible. It ended and I couldn't move. That's how hard it hit me. Couldn't move through the end credits, and even several minutes after. All that silence. That was powerful. Simple, and powerful. That, actually, may be the perfect way to describe the whole film. Then all I could think about was that I needed to write a review for this one, doing my part and letting people know they should watch it.

Also, if I can give you a little tip: watch it alone. Allow yourself to feel this one.

This starts off horrible. And I mean that in a way that if you are sensible you should have issues with the beginning of the movie. The violence depicted is devastating. It hurts just watching, your fists may clench and any decent human being will be at least sad and angry at the same time.

As if that wasn't enough, the same attack will be displayed a couple of minutes later from a different perspective. Which can be considered a neat trick to make the viewer relive this horrid experience. As if we were the victim, who are traumatized and have different ways of dealing with the incident. The woman here prefers silence, and it's a testament to her acting not speaking about things but conveying with her facial expression. She does not phone it in or is over the top.

The acting is top notch and the drama that ensues, while both husband and wife know what happened but do not communicate about it (for different reasons). It is not an entertainment watch, but it is really good. If you survive the first minutes which really are uncomfortable to put it mildly ...

This is a pretty decent suspenseful drama. I love Argentinian thrillers and have watched quite a few with Leonardo Sbaraglia on them. He's indeed a great actor, which is, in tandem, an asset and a downfall of this movie. Sbaraglia is so good that he completely outshines Brazilian actress Carolina Dieckmann, whose work I've seen many times in soap operas. I understand that she's playing a rape victim and that that experience can really traumatize a person. I also understand that this movie is about silence, about what we do not say, but Dieckmann's lack of depth did not strike me as part of the plot. Why so monotone, monosyllabic and, dare I say, monofacial? Is it because Spanish is not her native language? If so, being a Brazilian myself, I'm really surprised that she could not memorize longer lines in Spanish and did not dare to open a wider mouth in order to pronounce them. It is not that difficult for a Brazilian to learn Spanish. In the movie, it was established from the beginning that her character was not Uruguayan (where the story takes place), so there was no need to hide her accent. Then why speak so little? They even gave her a Brazilian co-worker so that Dieckmann could speak a little more, in Portuguese obviously. When Dieckmann substitutes Sbaraglia as the narrator (also in Portuguese), the movie almost runs off the tracks. I can only guess she had a lot of difficulty learning the lines in Spanish and delivering them convincingly. It's a pity. We've seen many actresses and actors learn a new language for a movie and almost master its accent. We've seen many professionals transform their entire bodies for a character. It seems to me that this is a matter of how seriously you're willing to take your job. Sbaraglia himself wasn't afraid to look hideous and to behave like a disgusting asshole in El Otro Hermano. So, Dieckmann has a gorgeous face, but in this movie she completely lacked a personality. I'm sorry to say that this could have been a great film, if they had cast a more suitable actress for the part of Diana. On a brighter note, very watchable, enjoyable and intelligent suspense/drama, that gets you thinking about fear, identity, relationships, sharing, trusting, hiding and the extreme measures one is capable of taking.