Fabulous. This is the type of film I love and hope to meet in my eternal hunt.
I saw the film again at IFFR Unleashed.
The story of love, loss and hope is one of all times. The way it is brought here makes it rise above itself. Virtually every moment breathes melancholy, in a beautiful way. Especially auditive this is enhanced by the mesmerizing beautiful soundtrack of Dergacheve, which gives every scene such an enormous extra charge ... Extra, because visually the shots are really phenomenal. Framing is incredibly well chosen. Organic and intuitive, usually, but so perfect, so balanced and every time so shots themselves are loaded with emotion. Unreal how that has been accomplished.
There seems to be hardly consciously an image to be composed, the framing, the light / shadow seem to do it automatically. Speechless I was the whole film, especially during the bathing scenes the beauty silenced me.
Silent Ones does not need to use symbolism in images, visual language to make the viewer understand. The emotional charge through image and sound is enough, the narrative framework is provided in a nicely dosed way for the right order by the slightly poetic voiceover.
And then the end, brilliant, answers are given at the same time as new questions are raised. It is an open and closed end at the same time. Very surprising and satisfying, but not really.
What a film, this belongs to me at genre favorites like Tarkovsky and Tarr. In order to bring a universal and heavy story so heavenly and beautiful in a high-quality way with basically simple images, sound and acting, wow, simply wow.
I have to go to work who is behind this fantastic cinematography of different cinematographers.
