Chilla

40 days of Silence is quite a different approach to the "coming of age" theme in modern cinema. It's not one of those - fall in love, fight with your parents, break out on a road trip - thing. Instead Bibicha, a young girl, goes to her grandmother an silences for 40 days, maybe to get things straight, maybe to listen into hers elf. Watching this movie needs a lot of time since it is a really quite movie. I dropped in from busy Berlin street life, breathlessly and late - but the movie still got me, touched me. They say its a common thing in Tadschickstan, in times of changes in your life, to silence for 40 days - what a great idea. In the movie you watch and hear a lot of the simple things, a dog barking, a drop of water dripping, snow falling.And simply by just watching you get drawn in your own thoughts. I liked that film - its different without getting all intellectual, sophisticated. Its rooted. Besides the girl there are three more actors, mother grandmother and sister all of them sometimes talking. So its not a film without words. I wish i could see more of these inspiring movies.

40 days of silence tells the story of four women in different age groups during key moments of their life. This film has an all women cast with no men present and yet their presence is constantly felt in the film. This is what I think director Saodat has done brilliantly.

In Uzbekistan it is a known tradition to take a vow of silence for various reasons such as being pregnant, losing a relative or even the change of weather. This film follows Bibicha a young girl who has just taken the vow of silence after loosing her aunt.

The film looks into traditional cultural conventions, which might make it a little strange for modern audiences, but what the director does is use cinematography to tell the story beautifully. The cinematography of this film is captivating, which is also helped by the location. It is used to emphasize the loneliness of the character.

With all this been said the story in the film does move along very slowly. It felt like sometimes the director was so concerned with all the beautiful cinematography that the story was neglected, which you can't do, if your main character has just taken a vow of silence. It felt like there should have been more time for the audience to build a relationship with Bibicha. This makes it hard for us to follow her when we don't really know her; it also leads to confusion as to who the main character is as the grandma ends up doing most of the talking. At the end of the film she is the character we know the best.

New director Saboth has definitely touched on how to tell traditional stories in a modern way and it will be good to see where she goes from this.