Carlos Reygadas (Japón, Battle in Heaven) mars his heretofore spotless track record with Silent Light (Stellet Licht), a film indebted to Carlos Dreyer’s Ordet that’s also the near-epitome of art-cinema pretentiousness. Reygadas not only drains any trace of sensuality and carnal heat – as well as any cultural/political shadings – from his latest, he also empties it of any noise or movement, employing so many slooooooooow-motion camera pans and zooms that his rigorously controlled aesthetic quickly seems a parody of its former self. Silent Light concerns a Mennonite family in Mexico whose patriarch Johan (Cornelio Wall) is torn between his wife Esther (Miriam Toews) and mistress Marianne (Maria Pankratz). Reygadas strives to elevate this tale to a biblical plane through visual and sonic inertia – which often results in a scene-by-scene game in which one strives to guess what’s hidden in the black space his camera is zooming into – as well as via affected symbolic moments such as a first-person shot of Marianne shielding her eyes from the sun with her hand, or the image of a moth flying out of a window immediately after a climactic instance of resurrection. Reygadas’ dedication to exacting formalism is impressive, but said form is itself the height of pomposity, his plethora of prolonged takes and amateurish acting conveying nothing that might qualify as spiritual, but revealing plenty about the vanity of its maker, who ultimately seems to care far less about his one-dimensional, designed-to-impart-messages characters than he does for his own show-offy artistry.
(2007 New York Film Festival)
really? for me this was the best experience I've had at a movie theatre (saw it at Toronto) in the last 10 years (and I'm a critic)
very nice review by the way
Posted by: Minella Fransasky | October 02, 2007 at 02:07 AM
I strongly agree with the last lines of your review, because of Japon and Battle in Heaven I came to admire Reygadas and I was very disappointed of Silent Light, I just can’t understand why his film is receiving awards and praises when he should be marked for plagiarism. His previews film Japon was clearly influenced by Tarkovsky but still the film wasn’t a copy of him. Not the case in Silent light, where everything from the pace, images, zooms, sounds were an exact copy from the Russian director and then it ends whit a forced “homage” to Ordet. The movie was more a tribute to Tarkovsky and Dreyer than an original Reygadas film. An advice to Reygadas: stop worshiping your favorite directors and continue developing your own ideas.
Posted by: Juan Canale | March 25, 2008 at 04:49 PM
Well, for me, the best film of the last 10 years. Deeply moving, for me, a film student, this is a true inspiration. I didn't care much about Japon, I hated Batalla en el Ciello, but Silent Light had me all excited, like nothing I've seen recently.
Posted by: andrea wilkins | March 26, 2008 at 01:36 PM
i was also disappointed - the style interfered completely with the tone - but i cannot deny that these are some of the most gorgeous images i've seen in a film this decade. while i guess it's fair to call it "show-offy," why shouldn't it be?
Posted by: steve | May 28, 2008 at 10:14 AM
beautiful images. i dont think anyone can deny that. but i must admit, the movie bored me. maybe im talking out my backside but i found the pacing to be too slow and inefficient.i found shots to be too long and at times almost apologetic for deadpan performances and dull lines. and finally, out my backside: i dont know any mennonites personally, but if thats what theyre like i dont think i care to see another movie about them...
Posted by: Martin S. | October 17, 2008 at 09:26 AM
Hm. If this is true cinematic pomposity and self-important posturing, it should be right up your ally--you and the Slant Mag crowd (a web site featuring critics who like stuff like 29 Palms and Suspiria--hey, somebody's gotta love it, right?). Your panning of this film turns it into a game of "which art-clique-nonsense-dreck will they endorse, and which will they snub?" I fail to see a pattern; maybe it's based on your mood at the time. Well, you liked The Dark Knight, I see, so maybe there's an actual film lover lurking in there somewhere under the pretentious "film critic." Sometimes I think we oughtta just lock you all in a small room with a pile of Godard films and let you sniff each other's farts (nirvana for film snobs!). Either that or help you find a meaningful occupation. Art criticism is for art critics only, meaning: it's dead.
But nice review overall. You're actually among the better of the Slant crowd. That Ed Gonzalez fellow makes me want to cry. Mr Kipp is rough on my inner film enthusiast as well. Do you guys even LIKE movies?
Posted by: carlos | December 30, 2008 at 12:00 PM