O Internato: Condenadas ao Silêncio

The plot is indeed a bit all over the place, especially in the second half, but I loved the movie nonetheless. The acting was very convincing and I felt very sympathetic to the girls. While not strictly a horror movie, this is a must see.

As someone who knows next to nothing about what makes a movie "good" and has no standards, I liked this movie. It certainly wasn't "horror", but it had good twists and the ending made me cry because I'm a baby who cries about everything. It was all very well acted and good enough (for me) to watch like 3 times. If you too have low movie standards, you'll probably enjoy this.

The Silenced, or the title literally translated as "The Lost Girls" have all setups you want to see in a mystery boarding school/orphanage movies. It includes mysterious rules, secret room, long dark halls, and confused school girls. This movie set in Japanese occupation era in Korea, where an all-girls sanatorium/boarding school to prepare them to go to Tokyo for a scholarship while recovering their physical health. But, little did a sickly girl who are new in the house, students are missing one by one.

While all seems perfect and I am ready to love this, I encounter myself in a confusing situation where I can't differentiate all of the students' faces. They wear uniform, they share same hairstyle, quite same body type, and I am trying enough to focus on their facial features to determine who's who and I give up and only knows who is she after her name is mentioned. Although this is very subjective and minor to the whole movie, I feel this situation withdraw me to join the buildups to the climax. But ... only if the buildups are good.

Another problem is, I think the movie is too dragging to explain or showing something. It's good at first because we have some bases to know what you may expect in terms of gore/jumpscares/violence you may encounter in the movie, but some depictions (like the main character having treatment in bed) happens for at least five times without any major development. It makes me difficult to follow the narration and to build the anticipation to the climax.

When the climax is happening, I was quite entertained, but it's too stale after watching many buildups, so it just felt flat. I like it more if the buildups can be more focused on one theme and cut the drama scenes. With lots of conflicts without any sort of increasing tension (and I don't know who's who), it seems that the climax (with quite obvious resolution) can't justify the movie as something worth watching, compared to movies with similar themes.

Even though it's quite low in my perspective, for those who like some glimpses about what's happening in Japanese occupation (although it's probably not quite accurate either), you'll like this one. I, for instance, like how they used Korean and Japanese language interchangeably in the movie to depict what is the status of the language in that era. More than that, I guess you can have yourself a try if you like this kind of movie, but I'm sure it's easy to find another movie that have better buildups, and you can differentiate the actors' faces.

''The Silenced'' is an above average mystery drama from South Korea with a few minor horror elements. The plot takes places during the thirties of the last century when the country was occupied by the Japanese. It follows the story of a teenage girl who is transferred to an isolated boarding school. After her mother's untimely death from tuberculosis, her father and his new wife are scared to get infected by the teenage girl whose medical condition is getting more and more critical. She gets various medical treatments at the boarding school and finally seems to recover step by step and ends up standing out as a promising sportswomen who might get the occasion to go to Tokyo with another girl to represent the small school honourably. However, strange things happen at the isolated boarding school. Some pupils disappear from one day to another without leaving any trace behind. Several students seem to be emotionally unstable and react in overtly aggressive ways in seemingly random situations without being able to recall these events later on. When the protagonist starts having strange visions, she wonders whether they are due to her new medication or whether there is more to it than that. Along with a new friend, she tries to uncover the school's gloomy secrets.

This movie convinces with a mysterious and slightly gloomy atmosphere from start to finish. This is due to the intriguing settings including the isolated boarding school itself, a secret room in the basement and an old forest with a mysterious pond. The authentic traditional costumes, mostly dimmed lighting techniques and the calm and mysterious score add to the gripping atmosphere. Another winning element are the few and cleverly integrated horror parts consisting of strange emotional outbursts of several characters, the protagonist's continuous nightmares and visions and the emotionally and physically brutal conclusion. The movie doesn't have any particular lengths and develops a coherent flow that is slightly slow in the opening twenty minutes, keeps a regular pace most of the time and ends up being a little bit faster in the final twenty minutes.

Even though the numerous young actresses are doing a solid job, there isn't anyone that really stands out. Most characters are slightly too exchangeable, pale and shy to get the audience emotionally involved with any of them. Despite a mysterious tone throughout the movie, the film reveals too many hints too quickly which leads to a quite predictable story halfway through the movie where the movie loses some momentum. The ending was a little bit too exaggerated, intense and stereotypical to go with the rest of the film. This is one of the rare films where I prefer the smooth, slow and gloomy first part of a film over the more intense, fast paced and engaging second half.

In the end, fans of South Korean cinema, atmospheric mystery movies and smooth teenage dramas should give this interesting mixture of genres a chance. Those who are expecting a truly original plot, outstanding acting performances or a scary horror film should look elsewhere. This is an entertaining movie for a lazy autumn or winter night at home but nothing more.

It isnt a good movie or bad movie. I thought it would be horror but it really just thriller and mystery the acting was good especially at the end of movie. And its kinda boring.