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Silent Land
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| Year: |
2021
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Director: |
Agnieszka Woszczynska
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| Stars: |
Dobromir Dumecki, Agnieszka Zulewska, Jean-Marc Barr, Alma Jodorowsky, Marcello Romolo, Claudio Bigagli, Elvis Esposito, Gennaro Iaccarino, Ibrahim Keshk
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| Genre: |
Drama |
| Rating: |
  7 (from 1 vote) |
| Review: |
Adam (Dobromir Dumecki) and Anna (Agnieszka Zulewska) are a well-off Polish couple who have arrived in this picturesque region of Italy for a vacation. They have rented a plush country house by the sea, and it has a pool for them to relax in - however, quelle horreur, there is no water in it and it is in need of minor repairs, a minor inconvenience the duo had not counted on and is now threatening the idyll they had planned for the holiday. They get on to the owner Fabio (Marcello Romolo) about it, and after offering them a free meal at his restaurant, they have to insist: fix the pool or they will take their custom elsewhere in future. But they have no idea of the troubles they are instigating by this seemingly simple request...
A glassily attractive little enigma, Silent Land was the debut of Polish director Agnieszka Woszczynska where she had evidently been taking notes from that European brand of arthouse filmmaking that resisted closeups and relied on the audience to get under the skin of the characters as far as they wished. That may not be very far for some, as the central couple, with their Aryan looks sharing white-blonde hair and skin pale enough to be almost translucent, were very hard to get to know in the first place, preferring to keep everything at a distance and almost mechanically going through a checklist of things to do on holiday, from sunbathing to fancy food to sex in the evenings. All of which indicated they were... having a good time?
Well, not for long, because on their orders the pool is repaired, causing some noise they irritably escape by going down to sun themselves on the cliffside. They're the sort of folks for whom a holiday would be so much more pleasurable if there were no locals around for them to interact with, but keeping them at arm's length is only going to take them so far. This is thrown into sharper relief when there's a mishap back at the house, in that damned pool to be specific, which brings them to the attention of the police. Now, they didn't do anything particularly wrong, it's more what they didn't do that is the issue, raising the question, if you could prevent an accident becoming a tragedy, would you? Silent Land was one of those dramas that prompted searching in the minds of the audience as well as the characters.
Although the performances were fine, this was not really an actors' film, to be more plain it was a director's attempt to sustain a mood that despite the warm summer sun, brought a chill to the bones. Adam and Anna, as far as they think at all, appear to be cracking up, their previously picture perfect existence revealed as not entirely real, and therefore when something very real indeed enters the frame, it upsets them since they have to start considering others' feelings in a way they have never needed to before. So closed off are they that they do not even open up towards each other, and besides a couple of tetchy exchanges they prefer to suffer mini-breakdowns alone, out of the gaze of anyone else. Presumably the director was observing something about her nation here, and its attitude to outsiders - there are ominous military movements occurring around the nearby forests that Adam and Anna take no interest in, but maybe should - but mostly it spoke to the sense that if you live in a bubble of privilege, there's always the danger that bubble can be popped. The final shot indicates what might have been.
[Showing as part of the KINOTEKA POLISH FILM FESTIVAL 2022 - 9TH MARCH TO 3RD APRIL. All of the festival proceeds go to SOS Children's Villages Ukraine emergency appeal.
Silent Land will be released in the UK later this year by Modern Films.]
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| Reviewer: |
Graeme Clark
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