MWFF’09 Review: Winter Silence
Sonja Wyss’ Winter Silence (Winterstilte) is a hard film to review. At only seventy minutes, it managed to try my patience as well as frustrate my innate want to piece together the visual puzzle before me. Largely silent and set in a remote wintry mountain village, there is little plot development but much symbolic imagery. As a piece of visual art, it succeeds: the beautiful and haunting images are unforgettable; but it suffers from feeling all too much like a show of experimental pieces without any cohesive point.
The story that exists is very simple. A young woman’s father falls after a long mountain hike and plummets to his death. He leaves behind four daughters and a wife for whom a period of grief begins. Dressed all in black, their days consist of knitting, sewing and preparing food. The repetitive and all-consuming nature of these activities comes across in a series of successive long shots. For minutes on end, audiences are treated to the rhythmic nature of four girls knitting at a table, their arms raising up to tighten the pattern and then threading with their needle. These scenes feel almost like synchronized swimming, and reveal a simple beauty to each act. The only other visible inhabitants of this town are young boys dressed up in robes who share secret passions with each of the sisters - this and when the sisters are alone giggling are the only shows of emotion in the film. The mother, always dressed in black, seems intent on making sure her daughters do not forget the grief they should be feeling for their lost father.
There are other images of worth in this film: a winter owl regurgitating hairballs like a cat, or fluttering into an open window to oversee a sleeping girl. There are also nightmarish dark robed creatures with antlers that occupy the mother’s thoughts, and whom bare a strange resemblance to the young robed men who enjoy heated affairs with her daughters. An intriguing image near the end of the film ties the fear and its realization together. There is also a recurring image of a character that looks like a Japanese Butoh dancer. This one was lost on me as it may be a regional reference.
It is for the above images and its short running time that you may be interested in Winter Silence. Unfortunately, it suffers from a glacial pace and and seeming pointlessness to the assortment of imagery. This would be recommended viewing as visual background to a gallery or house party, but is far from an engrossing film.
Film Festivals, Film Reviews | 
August 30, 2009
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