It's a sign of the ignorance of most professional film critics that few of them seem to have noticed that this film is a blatant rip off of Dreyer's 1955 film "Ordet" (with a little of the earlier "Day Of Wrath" thrown in). "Ordet" is a film that for most viewers moves quite slowly, next to "Silent Light" it feels like a Jason Bourne film though. There are some beautiful images and the non-professional cast do very well. None of this can save the film from it's leaden pace. What moments have heightened emotion tend to be lost in the whole stodginess of proceedings. Spelling out Johan's dilemma so blatantly and so early on is a curious piece of exposition that does not fit in this kind of film - Reygadas should have showed us this instead he tells us (the film is certainly long enough to have done this). It does not help that Reygadas cannot generate the sense of transcendence that Dreyer achieved in "Ordet". What was an intensely spiritual moment in that film seems like cynical sleight-of-hand here. While it is encouraging that younger filmmakers have actually seen films by a neglected master like Dreyer, there is though a world of difference between imitation and influence. Reygadas's first film was Tarkovsky lite, now Dreyer lite. The suspicion must be that he does not have an independent voice.
Review of Silent Light
