 |  | | | | | | ©2008 Bac Films | Set in the austere Mennonite community of northern Mexico, Carlos Reygadas's "Silent Light" is not about suffering and sin but about the enormous power of compassion and what it takes to be truly alive.
Filmed in consultation with the Mennonites, a Christian sect of European descent who speak Plautdietsch, a German dialect, the film is paced very slowly, almost excruciatingly so, but its meditative pace allows those with patience to enter the interior lives of the characters in a way that is normally not possible in cinema.
With outstanding performances by non-professional actors that reminds us of Bresson and Tarkovsky, the film’s physical beauty brings poetry to ordinary events such as machines harvesting crops, the milking of cows, and the faces of children having their hair shampooed.
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| Johan (Cornelio Wall), a father of five young children, is involved in a love triangle that has made him remorseful and uncertain of God’s approval. Torn between his wife Esther (Miriam Toews) and his lover Marianne (Maria Pankratz), he openly confesses his adulterous behavior to his wife as he entertains thoughts of abandoning his family.
In obvious pain, Johan sits alone at the kitchen table and weeps after Esther and the children have gone out following the morning ritual of breakfast and silent prayer, but his remorse does not prevent him from continuing to meet and have sex with Marianne. After Johan goes to a garage to pick up a crankshaft for his tractor, he tells his friend Zacarius (Jacobo Klassen) about his affair, then, when a familiar song comes on the radio, turns up the volume and sings along in an outburst of sudden joy while driving his truck in circles.
Later, he stops by his parent's farm to tell his father about his affair, explaining that he has told Esther about Marianne. His father, a preacher, hints that the devil may be responsible but also admits that he once also had an affair with a woman other than his mother.
In one of the warmest scenes of the film, Johan and Esther take the children bathing in a nearby pond, a gesture of love that made his infidelity all the harder for Esther to bear. When they are driving alone in a ferocious rainstorm, she complains of chest pains and has to get out of the car and walk to a nearby tree, in obvious discomfort.
A long and quiet film, "Silent Light" touches on some profound themes but keeps its emotional distance. Because there is little emphasis on religious beliefs or the real nature of his emotional and spiritual crisis, the film’s final homage to Carl Dreyer is not placed in a context where it can achieve either radiance or power and comes off as a second hand copy.
Yet though "Silent Light" doesn’t quite overcome its inertia and reach the heights, its visual beauty is consoling and at times overwhelming.
An exquisite six-minute tracking shot frames the film, an opening and closing sequence that attempts to connect our mundane lives to the ineffable beauty of the universe. As the illuminated stars slowly give way to sunlight and we are caressed by the ambient sounds of nature, we sense the light slowly beginning to illuminate our planet as we move into a new age, long forecasted in Hopi and Mayan tradition.
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