It almost goes without saying how rare it is to see a film that tackles grand themes of love and faith, and that treats the emotions of its characters with the utmost seriousness. Bettering both his extraordinary feature debut Japón and its equally provocative follow-up Battle in Heaven, Mexican director Carlos Reygadas reaches the lofty ambitions he sets for himself with this achingly intimate story set in a Mennonite community near Chihuahua. Already feted with such awards as the jury prize at Cannes last year, Silent Light deserves the widest possible audience even if its contemplative nature is worlds apart from the noise and bustle of most summer fare.
A religiously devout farmer, Johan (Cornelio Wall Fehr) suffers great anguish over the fact he’s in love with a woman who’s not his wife. Johan’s missus Esther (Miriam Toews, the Canadian author who grew up in a similar Mennonite community in Manitoba) and his newly discovered soulmate Marianne (Maria Pankratz) are equally wracked about the situation. And though they’re all in store for heavy weather — literally so in one rain-drenched scene — the film still contains many exquisitely rendered moments of joy, wonder and hopefulness, especially in the lovely sequence in which Johan and Esther’s children enjoy the local swimming hole.
It all builds toward a climax that not only explicitly evokes the films of Dreyer and Tarkovsky (Ordet and The Sacrifice in particular) but suggests Silent Light belongs in their league. In any case, it’s one of the year’s most miraculous movies.