Silent Souls

Depressing and Boring
If you're in the mood to be depressed and somewhat bored, this is just what you've been looking for. Imagine a place where the best you can wish for is asphyxiation by drowning. Well that's where this movie takes you. And is there a reason for this gloom? Not really other than maybe to pine for the lost Soviet Union. An upside is that not all the nude women in the story are dead.... although they may as well be. The director found a way to make sure that no audience members would become aroused. Apparently, according to the vision of this film, having sex holds about the same low level of excitement as laying on a slab, waiting to be cremated. So if it's so bad, why does this rotten tomato get three stars? I give it credit for interesting cinematography, and for it's poetry which I admit is actually quite good. If I was a pretentious douche, I certainly would have given a five star rating, but since I'm genuine, it comes down to three stars.

A film for thought
This film is a remarkable gift for the viewer eager to escape from the tedium of action movies and flicks for adolescents of all ages. SILENT SOULS advances at a slow pace, with long periods without dialogue. In these intervals, audible only are the muted sounds of the drive train and the contact of the automobile with the driving surface. Visually there is no distracting spectacle. The landscape is primitive, expansively flat, cold and bleak. Wrapped in a blanket behind the two principal protagonists is the dead wife of one of the men, which they are transporting in an ancient, ethnic funeral rite. The men have also brought two birds in a cage. Numerous images evoke mortality and the fragility of our links with one another in the past, present and future. There is much here to ponder, and the intellectual space in which to do it.

A profound and original master[iece
Easily one of the finest films of recent years, SILENT SOULS is profound yet modest, serious yet funny, idiosyncratic yet truly universal. It will take you to another world.

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