Silent light (2007)

Silent light is not a romance film. It's take on infidelity is rooted in morality and religion. The film pays homage to the Danish director Carl T Dreyer and it also seems to aspire towards Dreyer's singular seriousness. Mostly, this seriousness appears not as a stylistic ploy but rather an attempt to come to terms with something. Johan and Marianne are among the least extravagant lovers I have seen on film. Their infidelity is not represented as an exciting adventure - their affair is simply inevitable, something they cannot resist. Johan's wife knows about the affair; she grievs, but she does not reject him. They are mennonites, and the religious dimension of their lives, of the small Dutch-speaking community in which they live (the story is set in Mexico), is an important aspect of the film. The film treats religion as a way of life, in which ordinary life and faith are intertwined - religion is here far from collectivity and stern rules: rather, confession is emphasized but where people also try to live with difficult things without really acknowledging that they are present. Peace is an ideal, and that ideal is shown in all its ambiguity - as a way of accepting, but also avoiding conflicts.

Nature almost overshadows the characters of the film. The rural landscapes are from the get-go a world in which we are encapsulated - it is no mere adornment. Often, the camera films the characters from far away. The impression is often austere and even sublime (yes, that's a tricky word). A sunriese, almost seen in real time, opens the film, and the experience of darkness/light and chirping birds is one that one will not forget easily.

All scenes do not strike the right chord, but most do. The tone of the film - contemplative wonder, grief - may not smash you with emotion, but it is gripping in a quiet, steady way to see Johan, Esther and Marianne's struggles and agony. Most of all, there is often a sense of waiting here, a sense that gets explicit and heavily loaded towards the end of the film.

Making a film about Mennonites could easily have become a silly obsession with 'people living in the past'. But the people in the films are not turned into caricatures, nor are they exoticized. Their way of life is not turned into a freak-show. Using non-professional actors was probably a good choice. Reygadas choses a stylized, deadpan style for them, rather than the messiness of real life. Mostly, this works quite well, and enhances a sense of waiting - of the agonies that are there, but never fully openly acknowledged. But that technique threatens to make the film lapse into the sort of exoticism it otherwise avoids. The artificiality it goes for is really double-edged.