Dream and Silence (2012) User Reviews

One of the best films in years

[cbmorgan365 · 9/10 · 25 May 2012]

I think I'm being unkind giving this film a 9. It's as close to perfection for such a simple film as it's likely to get.

I'll try my best not to include spoilers, but it's difficult not to give too much away.

Okay, where do I start? The performance of the mother in this film is simply mesmerising, the raw emotion of dealing with grief, the pent-up anger at the reaction of her husband.

The film is beautifully shot in black and white, with only a brief flirt with colour. As a film person, I was struggling to work out how the director achieved one shot overlooking a field, that looked like a tracking shot, but wasn't.

One of the most original and moving funeral sequences that I have ever seen, a long lingering shot from a short distance, leaving the family and friends to their privacy.

I cried at one point, I am not ashamed to say. If you see the film, it will probably have the same effect on you, a classroom scene without the class. And a daughter trying to reach out to her father but her father not seeing (again trying not to give too much away!) I hope this film gets a cinema release in the UK, somehow I doubt it will, which would be a real shame. The best film I saw at Cannes by a country mile and also one of the best films I have seen in a very long time. A great example of how to squeeze the maximum out of very simple subject matter.

A real surprise and a revelation.

A deeply immersive experience

[MOscarbradley · 10/10 · 27 May 2017]

Over the course of three films I have learned to expect nothing from Jaime Rosales other than the unexpected. Consequently he is a filmmaker in danger of alienating his audience with films that are bold and experimental and quite different from those of his contemporaries. But Rosales is far from simply an experimental filmmaker; his films also deliver a punch to the gut that can leave an audience reeling. I think he is one of the masters.

He chose to film "Dream and Silence" in widescreen black and white. It begins in silence and I wondered if, like "Bullet in the Head", this was going to be another wordless film, but no, Rosales wants us to really get to know his characters, even when keeping them at arm's length or even off screen. This is a film about family and a family forced to deal yet again with tragedy and loss; the black and white cinematography is entirely appropriate to the chilly feelings being expressed.

Rosales is also a magnificent director of 'actors'. Because of the documentary-like fashion in which Rosales films his players there is a naturalism to the performances rare in contemporary cinema which, of course, is only to be expected as he often uses non-professional actors 'playing' characters with the same names as themselves which is what he does here; everything flows organically. This really is a pretty immersive experience and it shouldn't be missed.