Another Silence (Santiago Amigorena, 2011): France

Reviewed by Sofia Arnbom. Viewed at the Santa Barbara Film Festival, 2012.

Santiago Amigorena’s new movie is an emotional thriller, with some action and a lot of atmosphere. The main character Marie appears

The story begins in Toronto. A police woman (Marie-Josée Croze) lives with her husband Joshua (Benz Antoine) who is a lawyer and their son Nicky (Aaron Parry). One evening the father and son drives away to see a game. A black car drives up next to them at a traffic lights and the person who sits in the passanger seat shots them to death.

In her very short grieving, Marie decides to hunt the murderer down. All the way from snowy and cold Toronto down to warm and dangerous South America. We are shown the not so bright side of Argentina and how Marie survives under those circumstances, with only herself to trust.

We also get to follow the killer, a young boy named Pablito (Ignacio Rogers). Who was coerced into committing the murder by his uncle who is a drug dealer. Because Marie once arrested the uncle and he wanted revenge. As we follow Pablito’s story we get to know his family, he has a little baby and some problems with his girlfriend. He also lied to her what he was doing in Canada. He is not a bad kid after all, it is the uncle’s bad  influence that is forcing Pablito to follow him to Argentina and deal with som drug business.

I read some other reviwes on this movie and they all say the same, the same as I thought, that the movie contains too little suspense and tension. There is no much desert and slow shots from the killing to the actual showdown at the end. There is not so much story, we are just waiting for Marie to find Pablito. Even though Marie meets some friendly and unfriendly locals in South America, there is not enough tension to keep the story interesting enough and it does not add enough to the story. There is no action and there is almost no dialogue between the characters.

Marie is almost doing this in a “robotic” way. She does not talk much and the only humanity that is shown from her is when she meets Pablito’s wife down in South America. Pablito’s wife acts in a way that makes Marie understands that she does not have it easy with him being the father of there child and involved in all this bad business. They get some kind of connection.

The movie is shot in a widescreen and by a handheld camera, that makes the film a bit more exciting. But it does not help much. The landscapes are shown in deep focus, that makes the dry landscape of Argentina look huge and endless. There is almost no music in this movie. It makes the movie very silent.

Even though the movie was not that exciting, I thought it was worth watching. The actors play good and the surroundings in the movie were interesting to watch.