Another Silence (Santiago Amigorena, 2011): France/Argentina/Canada/Brazil

Reviewed by Linda Lopez.  Viewed at SBIFF Metro 4.

“Another Silence” is about revenge and forgiveness.  It was directed by Santiago Amigorena, an Argentine who lives in France.  This is Amigorena’s first film although he has been involved in writing screenplays.  He should pursue making more films because his talents are apparent in this riveting movie.

The heroine Marie (portrayed by Marie-Josee Croze) is a woman police officer who is driven to track down an assassin who killed her husband and young son in cold-blooded murder.  The story begins in Canada and ends in Argentina.

The opening scene of the film depicts the heroine’s son coming out of grade school and talking to his classmates.  It has recently snowed and everyone is appropriately wearing their warm apparel which provides the environmental ambience of Toronto in the winter.

Second scene.  We meet Marie, the heroine of the story ending her shift at the police station.  When one of her police colleagues asks her to go out after work, Marie declines saying she has grocery shopping to do.

When Marie returns home after a long day at the police station, and grocery shopping afterwards, she heads straight to the kitchen to prepare dinner.  While dinner is brewing on the stove, Marie drops by her son’s bedroom to see how he is doing—for the sake of moving the plot along, he is doing his homework with due diligence with a smile to boot.

When Marie walks into her master bedroom, her husband greets her saying that he’s finally fixed the squeaks in the bed springs.  Hmmm.  Does fixing the squeaky sounds of bed springs open the doors to out-loud sex?  Well, Marie thinks so and climbs on top her husband (meanwhile, dinner is still brewing on the stove and their son is studying within ear-shot distant in the next room).  But alas, the bed begins to creak again, so any amorous intentions are watered down.

From this point on, the audience is aware that Marie is a “cop” and we know that she has a loving family, and that they will soon eat for dinner.  However, her husband Joshua suddenly remembers that he has a basketball game to go to with his son—dinner is a “no go.”  Joshua and son hurriedly leave home because they are already behind schedule to get to the game.

When Joshua and the son drive away from home in their white sedan, he doesn’t notice that he is being followed by a black SUV.  At an isolated intersection, the black SUV pulls up to the white sedan, and Joshua and his son are killed by a rapid firing of bullets from the SUV.  Missing pieces to the plot, but builds up later as the plot unfolds, but at least the audience knows that the black SUV is full of bad guys.

This is a story about revenge and forgiveness.  The plot is complicated from ground zero.  It’s not only that the cop is going after the assassin of her family, it is about the assassin going after the cop who incarcerated his uncle.

The director uses contrasts during the course of the film, from white to black, from Toronto to Argentina, from winter to summer, and from snow to the desert.  Mirrors are used to contrast the reflections of the protagonist and antagonist.

In the end, there is forgiveness vs. revenge in order to move on with life.