“Silent Land” - Film Review
A vacation is meant to be a getaway. A time to experience new food, culture, and landscapes. Perhaps most importantly, the purpose of a vacation is to relax. Such is the plan for the couple at the heart of Silent Land. On the surface, Anna (Agnieszka Zulewska) and Adam (Dobromir Dymecki) are a perfect couple who have chosen the perfect Italian villa for their trip. The house is on a cliff with a beautiful view of the beach and a path that leads directly to the shore. There’s also a pool that sits empty on the property, and despite having the beach at their disposal, Anna and Adam want the owner of the house to fix the pool while they’re there. Enter Rahim (Ibrahim Keshk), the undocumented immigrant who’s been hired to fix the pool. An unexpected event occurs between Anna, Adam, and Rahim that ruins any chance of relaxation for the couple.
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Silent Land has the easy job of making the unnamed Italian island look serene and beautiful. The blue water is inviting and cool, the mountains are begging to be explored. The film’s sound design is in direct contrast to the picturesque island life the audience is presented with. Rahim’s jack-hammering, the harsh, exaggerated sounds of window blinds crunching together, and even the simple sounds of stocking the fridge come across as uncomfortable disruptions. It’s a beautiful duality that director Aga Woszczynska has created for the viewer. Even though we cannot physically feel the warmth of the Italian sun, we’re forced to live in the way that has these two senses pushing against each other in the same way that the vacation Anna and Adam wanted is at odds with the vacation they’re experiencing.
Despite being initially released in 2021, Silent Land has a lot in common with more recent fare like The Menu and Triangle of Sadness. It is a skewering of the rich, but one that, like the aforementioned films, is missing that crucial turn of the screw that would allow it to be the angry piece of social commentary it wants to be. Silent Land is building toward something of an impact, but then lumbers on for another hour, rehashing the same theme of its first hour. There was the hope that Silent Land would take a more overtly psychological turn, something akin to Edgar Allan Poe’s The Tell-Tale Heart, in relation to the ever-present pool, but no such turn ever arrives.
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Aside from the previously mentioned unexpected accident, Silent Land’s main conflict is in the splintering of the perfect couple and their relationship. This accident is meant to lift the veil and prove that Anna and Adam are not the ideal couple they portray themselves to be, but the cracks are evident early on. Maybe not the cracks in the relationship itself, but the couple never comes across as people the audience would want to spend time with. They complain about the empty pool when the ocean is right there and the island is experiencing water issues. The main topic of conversation on their first night in the villa is about drawer pulls in the newly-renovated kitchen. Silent Land lets the audience know from the start that these are not great people, but never takes its criticism further than that.
Silent Land is the feature debut of director Woszczynska, and despite the fact that the premise feels too thin to stretch to the entire runtime, the film is a promising first entry. It’s at its strongest when the characters are finally talking and reckoning with how the event will shape the rest of their lives. Silent Land is a critique of class structures, but never manages to reach the depth of the pool that haunts the characters of the film.
Silent Land is exclusively available on Film Movement Plus at filmmovementplus.com and Amazon Prime Video.
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