Film Review - Silent Friend

Images courtesy of Hi Gloss Entertainment.

Charting the collision between academia and spirituality over the course of 100 years, Hungarian auteur Ildikó Enyedi’s Silent Friend is an enthralling study of both scientific and personal discovery. Its triptych structure mixes formats, time periods and performers including arthouse legends Tony Leung and Léa Seydoux. What emerges is a thoughtful and unpretentious appeal for ecological care and collaboration.

Set in and around the German university town of Marburg, Silent Friend chronicles the journeys of three different characters struggling with social alienation. Shot on 35mm black-and-white film by cinematographer Gergely Pálos, one narrative thread follows Greté (Luna Wedler), who struggles with academic misogyny in 1908 as the first woman admitted into the University. Another follows Hannes (Enzo Brumm), an introvert witnessing the free-love counterculture of the ’70s in grainy 16mm. And in modern day digital footage, Leung gives a wry and understated performance as a visiting Hong Kong scientist trapped on campus during COVID-19 lockdown.

As wildly disconnected as these storylines initially seem, common ground is found in each lead’s personal connection to plant life – through photography, housekeeping and scientific experimentation respectively. In keeping with lengthy botanical lifespans, social and scientific progress is measured in centuries rather than seconds. So naturally, there is only one recurring character across all three timelines – the enormous ginkgo tree at the center of the university, which gradually undergoes its own transformational arc.

To fully appreciate Silent Friend, it’s necessary to accept its ground-level pitch that plants aren’t just alive, but fully sentient and emotionally attuned to human life. Thankfully, Enyedi handles the high concept with enough wit and humility to ground its heady fantasy. Early on, Leung’s character compares the results of his neurological studies to being ‘high all the time’ and Silent Friend quickly achieves this promised psychedelic flow. Enyedi aims to instill her audience with the same curiosity as its protagonists, welcoming any and all forms of interpretation. It’s never too much of a chore to decode the cascade of visual echoes and motifs, as they’re in service of a fundamentally moving commentary on the different relationships we nurture – romantic, intellectual, symbiotic.

Many will be beholden to Wedler’s electric turn as a budding artist navigating her male-dominated field, while others may bask in the warmth of the sun-dappled ’70s segment and its playful send-up of the hippie movement. On this note, Silent Friend’s apoliticism feels frustratingly safe at times. It shares the centrist stance of another iconic anthology tale, Cloud Atlas, in its broad plea for globalised scientific cooperation over human infighting. Though this wide-eyed idealism can be somewhat grating, the film’s final shot is an undeniable feat of empathic filmmaking. Within the constraints of a single frame, Enyedi wordlessly ties together all her musings on loneliness, time and connection.

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Silent Friend is screening in cinemas from July 2nd. For tickets and more info, click here.