Silent Light (2007) directed by Carlos Reygadas

Piers Handling selected Carlos Reygadas as one of the best emerging film directors working today and chose the film Silent Light (2007) as an example that best represents his work.

Silent Light

Johan and his family live in the north of Mexico. Against the laws of his faith and traditional beliefs, John – a married man – falls in love with another woman, thus facing an internal dilemma: whether to betray his wife, the woman he once loved, and disrupt the apparent stability of the community, or whether to sacrifice his true love and future happiness.

“Reygadas’s long, languid shots consistently affirm a sense of order: through nature…and through man…But Johan’s transgressive love flies in the face of the structure and harmony of marriage, family and societal mores. It is disruptive and is ultimately depicted as a destructive force. In a most extraordinary scene…Esther [Johan’s wife] angrily leaves the car, sobs by a tree in the woods, collapses and dies…The [following] scenes present something far more profound, a moment of transcendent power and redemption…Anger and tears, death and grief – dark, divisive emotions – are replaced almost magically…by a positive, bonding sense of resurrection, life, affirmation, and forgiveness,”

Piers Handling, co-director of the Toronto International Film Festival