Silent Light

Silent Light, the third feature from Carlos Reygadas (Japón, Battle in Heaven), is a rigorous, powerful, profoundly beautiful drama of faith and redemption that consciously evokes the metaphysical cinema of Bresson or Dreyer. (The film’s breathtaking conclusion is a direct nod to Dreyer’s 1954 masterpiece Ordet). Silent Light is set within an austere Mennonite community in northern Mexican and played by a non-professional cast; most of the dialogue is in a Low German dialect known as Plautdietsch. The protagonist is Johan, a devout, stalwart man married to a fine wife — but helplessly drawn, by the power of love, to another woman. Canadian novelist Miriam Toews — said to have been cast by Reygadas after he saw her author’s photo on a book jacket — makes her screen debut as Johan’s wife. “At its very best, it has the richness of Malick or the transcendental simplicity of Ozu. A deeply considered, formally accomplished, beautiful-looking and unexpectedly gripping film from a director making a giant leap into the first rank of world cinema” (Peter Bradshaw, Guardian).

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Silent Light is also screen on February 21 as the Closing Night Film for ¡Viva El Cine Mexicano!