10/06/2009

Dutch film Winter Silence [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by the Bahaman-born director Sonja Wyss is an experimental feature as fresh as its white, mountainous setting. Released in only the Netherlands so far, it also screened IndieLisboa festival (April 23-May 3).

Deep in the Swiss mountains lives a secluded Catholic family whose patriarch dies in an accident, leaving a wife and four daughters. Hooded men with antlers ("Deermen") appear to symbolise their period of mourning, and turn into real men having sex with the daughters.

This transition from symbolic to actual is a paradigm of the whole film: the clear use of symbols makes this experiment without dialogues unexpectedly concrete and easy to follow and introduces us to a world teetering on the border of earthliness and spirituality.

Top-notch cinematography and sound immerse us in the strong images of snowy mountains, sparse wooden houses, lonely strands of smoke from the chimneys and strong symbols such as the Deermen and a big owl, "the one who sees everything".

The film flows flawlessly, with a smooth tempo alternating between aspects of religion, femininity, longing and sex. In the cold, and as the title itself proclaims, quiet atmosphere, every inch of sparsely shown flesh raises the heat, and images such as four girls lying in their symmetrically positioned beds spill warmth out at the spectator. But this warmth does not come from an idyllic family setting, on the contrary – it is the heat of untold secrets and guilty passion that the girls have.

The entire cast, led by Gerda Zangger as the mother who bears the responsibility for the whole family’s wellbeing on her shoulders, makes perfect use of a no-dialogue setting to convey mixed emotions towards tradition and sexuality. Wyss connects the scenes seamlessly, giving the spectator a clear message in a full-blooded cinematic experience.

Winter Silence premiered in the 2009 Berlinale Forum and was produced by Digna Sinke for SNG Films.