leogalicia Review of Silent Light

Silent Light (2007)

Just the best movie i have seen... four times already

[10/10 · 15 January 2008]

This is not a movie for the 300/spider man/transformers fan base. And i don't mean it in an offensive way, but if you are a fan of fast cuts and non stop action this is probably not the movie for you. Silent light is build of less than 10 scenes total, each one lasting from 5 to 15 minutes and scarce to not dialog and music. And here is where Silent light success lies, being thematically so simple it achieves so much with such rudimentary tools. A conventional story told in an unconventional way. The lack of dialog and music is compensated with environmental sounds and natural light, the lack of action is compensated with the inspection of open landscapes and the close ups of expressive faces. Each one of the fragments of this movie is mesmerizing and of increasing beauty. After seen the sunrise of the opening sequence you wonder how can Reygadas match that shot next. But he does, the children bathing in the pond, Johan singing to a radio song while driving his truck, Esther crying in the rain and the funeral scene are all on itself some of the best shorts ever made. Pure cinematographic ecstasis and the stuff that all movies should at least partially hold. Paraphrasing another reviewer fan "movies are the corpse that Reygadas kiss is bringing back to life". If this is not why the word poetry was made for, then what is it?