‘Silent Land’: Wild Winds of a Wedding

Undoubtedly, summer is an ideal time on a cinematic level. There are many movies set in a season of the year usually associated with rest. In recent years it has also served as a bitter moment of reflection, with which he makes a strong contrast between seemingly peaceful sunbathing or swimming in the sea in contrast to inhospitable situations, as can be seen in Maggie’s “The Dark Daughter” Gyllenhaal, ‘Golpe de sol’ by Vicente Alves do Ó or in ‘The Stranger of the Lake’ by Alain Guiraudie. In a similar vein, ‘Silent Land’, Aga Woszczynska’s first feature film, is now in theaters.

‘Silent Land’ narrates the holidays of a Polish bourgeois couple who have rented a house on an island in southern Italy. The summer of that season is proving to be particularly hot, due to the low rainfall typical of the season, which has caused a severe drought in the region. That doesn’t stop the couple, Adam and Anna, from asking that their villa’s swimming pool be repaired and, if possible, filled with water. An accident breaks the mutual trust of spousestriggering a series of far-reaching consequences.

Woszczynska, who co-wrote the screenplay with Piotr Litwin, makes a daring cinematic exercise for her first feature film. The couple is idyllic, the image of a dream, a wedding that seems perfect, incredibly blondnon-trivial detail. The director plays with this bourgeois couple, played by Agnieszka Zulewska and Dobromir Dymecki, and with their holidays, in a way that creates mixed sensations. On one side, the staging is hypnotic, but, on the other hand, this effort to have a puddle full of water in the midst of the drought never ceases to arouse a certain antipathy.

Thus, the director prepares what ends up being a pressure cooker, cooked over a very low heat. After the accident, the tape changes pitch, effectively recalling ‘Force Majeure’, Ruben Östlund’s most acclaimed film (since he’s in charge of highlighting his trailer); but also evokes titles such as ‘The Pool’ by Jacques Deray or ‘Under the Sand’ by François Ozon, transforming those holidays into sentimental hell, seeing both spouses in front of the mirror of the most primary and spontaneous reaction, the one you don’t think about and which only manifests itself in the face of an unexpected event.

A solid debut from a director with drive and personality

Woszczynska proves to have an exceptional wrist when it comes to breaking down the most visceral reactions, with which he makes a ferocious critique of bourgeois society and in a transversal key, where aporophobia breaks in, given that the luxurious island is constantly monitored, given that it is also a place of reception for illegal immigration from Africa. The director also makes clear the different treatment between foreign tourists with money and those who are immigrants and desperately looking for a better life.

And, in between, a formidable interpretive duo. The comparison with ‘Force majeure’ is not strange, given that Woszczynska too reveals a masculinity in crisis, just like it happened in Östlund’s film, with Dobromir Dymecki becoming a great current response to Swede Johannes Bah Kuhnke in the aforementioned film. In this case, it is not an avalanche that breaks the relationship, but a terrible drought and an unexpected accident.

The filmmaker also shows that she has a hand for the scenes in which the dialogues are the looks, the settings, the environments. To the idealized image of the blonde, white and bourgeois couple, who see themselves surrounded by a paradise… only this is arid, dry, with murky watersa visual representation of the sandstorm the wedding is involved in.

Solid debut from a filmmaker who has the plumpness of her compatriot Malgorzata Szumowska; albeit with the satirical touch and acid humor typical of Pawel Pawlikowski’s early works. “Silent Land” is a fascinating drama in which we witness how fire ends up consuming not only love, but also reason itself. A fascinating cinematic exercise.

Note: 8

The best: The game Woszczynska plays between nature and the couple’s emotional breakdown.

Worse: He needs a little more bad milk.