A silence: Lafosse brilliantly examines the darkness of the human soul (review)
In a suffocating tension, the director of Les Intranquilles exposes with cruel irony the decency and taboos that tear a bourgeois family apart.
What is the price of silence? After offering us The Intranquilles in 2021, Joachim Lafosse returns at the start of the year to affirm cinema’s ability to do without words. A silent filmmaker, he shows with A silence the dangerousness of taboos. In a large bourgeois house in which everyone seems to be busy, Astrid (Emmanuelle Devos) maintains a fragile balance between a turbulent son and a husband (Daniel Auteuil) lawyer on the brink. The latter, officiating in a kidnapping case, finds himself the target of a media conflict. And that’s about all we’re told (and what we can say without spoiling the film). However, we quickly understand that a secret weighs heavily on the family ready to implode.
The story, inspired by a news item that hit the Belgian headlines, gives the actors the opportunity to prove (once again) their accuracy. The spectator is also caught in a vice, partitioned with them between the walls of the villa surrounded by journalists. The silence here is not characterized by an absence, it is very present and claustrophobic. The plot loses us the better to disturb us, gradually revealing despicable behavior treated with coldness and without judgment. This painful experience elegantly depicts the failings of a woman consumed by the shame of her powerlessness and who struggles to keep her head above water in the tumult.
Bastien Assie
By Joachim Lafosse With Daniel Auteuil, Emmanuelle Devos, Matthieu Galoux… Duration 1h39. Released January 10, 2024
