Directed by: Aga Woszczyńska
Starring: Dobromir Dymecki, Agnieszka Żulewska, Jean-Marc Barr, Ibrahim Keshk
Rating: ★★★★☆
Aga Woszczyńska’s Cicha ziemia (Silent Land) proves that her name is worth tracking down in European cinema, but it is also confirms a recent trend in Polish film. Italy has become one of the preferred film locations for Polish cineastes outside their homeland. Jacek Borcuch’s Słodki koniec dnia (Dolce Fine Giornata), and more recently, Jerzy Skolimowski’s Cannes winner EO (2022), are there to prove it.
Woszczyńska’s debut feature film is set on an untamed and somewhat forbidding corner of coastal Sardinia which is chosen by a Polish couple for a vacation doomed to go wrong. The titular silent land is also a breeding ground for the ‘code of silence’, deeply rooted in southern Italy, and casually embraced by Adam (Dobromir Dymecki) and Anna (Agnieszka Żulewski) at the end of their banal but perilous holiday on the Italian island.
Rahim (Ibrahim Keshk) is a migrant from Northern Africa hired under the table to fix the pool at the rental place booked by Adam and Anna. The illegal worker is found dead after falling in the object he was trying to repair during their stay at the villa. Has the Polish couple deliberately lied to local authorities in order to keep their criminal record clear? Or rather, does the tourists’ behaviour with local police become more and more erratic only because of the emotional shock due to the accident?
The glacial chemistry between Dymecki and Żulewska works beautifully on the big screen. The twosome’s growing fear of being found culpable for failing to provide assistance to Rahim becomes and more readable in the actors’ performance through the movie. Moreover, Silent Land is enlivened by a crafty performance of Jean-Marc Barr, the leading role in Luc Besson’s cult film The Big Blue (1988), as the scuba diving instructor that attempt to initiate Adam and Anna to the Mediterranean’s depths.
The two tourists are presented as a cosmopolitan couple but the Polish filmmaker willingly let some traits of ‘Polishness’ surface here and there in the script. Their veiled anti-Arabism and way of serving and drinking grappa, an Italian strong spirit, as it was vodka, discreetly point to their country of origin.
Silend Land is not a film about reincarnation or spirituality. Nevertheless, despite its apparent simplicity, the ending summons on the screen the inner demons of the couple in a way that evokes wonderfully the ghost-inhabited films of Apichatpong Weerasethakul. Woszczyńska’s film deservedly was given the chance to premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival.
Film Reviewed by Giuseppe Sedia
Published by Kino Mania on September 09, 2022