The sensuous spiral into dawn from the celestial heights, which starts Silent Light, drops us into the flawed world of man with a cacophonous barnyard welcome. Carlos Reygadas’ new film is playing for a week as part of the Filmmaker in Focus series at the Museum of Modern Art. From the first frame to the last, the images levitated in refined air, as concrete and ephemeral as the minimalist pieces in the galleries above.
The slow, ponderous shots and the steady track-ins, which commence the film and inform the narrative pacing, are beyond mesmerizing; they are revelatory. The audience is compelled to empathize with the story of a secluded Mennonite community in Chihuahua, Mexico through the elemental power of the camera. The director’s ability to capture mood and family history through simple framing puts the device to its best use. In addition, the mulish use of a medieval German dialect, Plautdietsch, throughout the film might be off-putting at first, but it is a calculated move that further pushes the story into fairytale country.
Silent Light snatched a Jury Prize award at Cannes in 2007 and disappeared silently. It’s likely that distributors feared that the film’s austere and hypnotic imagery was too difficult for art house audiences in the States. The loss though is completely ours. Besides the debut at MoMA, a three-week run is scheduled at Film Forum, starting January 7th. This parable is far different from Reygadas’ first two films, Japón and Battle in Heaven, which were both much more provocative and employed a bustling, showy camera style. In contrast, Silent Light is a tranquil journey, hewing closer to a daguerreotype sensibility. Images slowly materialize with startling depth once the audience settles into the rhythm of the story.
The narrative revolves around Johan and the mysterious forces that induce him to stray from his dutiful wife Esther and their brood of precocious children. He finds himself in the bed of Marianne, a local ice cream shop owner. Oddly, Johan’s inexplicable earnestness makes for an open affair without any of the subterfuge that usually accompanies such diversions.
Still, Reygadas keeps the pain of betrayal and guilt conspicuous through affective composition. The sumptuous tactility of the shots hints at danger in all the dark crevices whether in a garage pit submerged in shadows or the back of a truck dimly lit by a small television. An ever-present agitation manifests during tepid moments at the dining table or at a bathing creek. This palpable uncertainty of sentiment tightens the nerves and produces a breathless examination of the peripatetic signs in every look, edifice, and utterance. The audience is constantly waiting for the other shoe, or leaf (falling from the ceiling after fervent love-making between Johan and Marianne), to drop. In one improbable scene that offers escape from the cramped spaces, we are assaulted by the blinding white expanse of snow in an otherwise sun-drenched environment. However, the freedom is short lived, for Johan is unable to make a decision about which life to lead, and we are catapulted right back into the emotional morass and the real “cold” Esther endures in stone faced resignation.
The vital close-ups throughout also betray the characters’ inner turmoil. Stoicism is revealed as a mask that the devout wear to avoid tearing the social fabric. Certain customs have already been assaulted by the outside world, but a studied indifference remains in the Mennonite community. During the respective breakdowns of both Johan and Esther, the camera stubbornly stands still and forces us to bear witness to their once-veiled frailty. Reygadas also lingers on close-ups during what would be furtive moments in any other film—a kiss in the field between the adulterous pair, Marianne’s face during sexual climax, or blonde heads bobbing in the still water. Most auspiciously, Silent Light ends with a miracle that does not seem fantastical at all, but of an accord with the sublime ritual on display for us—one further enigma in a pensive masterpiece.
Reygadas’ provocative images start and stop like the beating of a heart. The car, the truck, and the tractor propel characters away from the emotional center of the film—the preternatural family—but they always end up back at the center struggling anew with their weaknesses. May the director trust us to find our way along these fractured byways. Amen.
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