SILENT SOULS

SILENT SOULS

Sex, Death And The Meaning Of Life

Directed By Aleksei Fedorchenko
Starring Igor Sergeyev, Yuri Tsurilo, Yuliya Aug

It’s hard to imagine any two people having the exact same response to the peculiar gambits of Russian art house film Silent Souls, which is part of what makes it special – on the spectrum from exasperated boredom to total rapture, everyone gets their own spot.

The film is set in the Lake Nero region in west central Russia, where the ethnic Meryan community (who trace their origins to Finland) are still in evidence. Middle aged factory boss Miron (Yuri Tsurilo) is devastated at the death of his wife Tanya (Yuliya Aug) and asks his best friend Aist (Igor Sergeyev) to help with traditional Meryan funeral ceremonies. Her body must be cremated and the ashes deposited in water. But before this, the widowed Miron must follow the ancient Merja custom of “smoking” – which basically involves verbalising every intimate detail of his marriage and sexual habits.

While watching flashbacks to the erotic moments in Miron and Tanya’s marriage (which, piece by piece, begin to reveal her own relationship with Aist) is often uncomfortable, it is hearing Miron and Aist’s frank and rapturous discussion about the deceased Tanya’s sexual allure which truly confronts the audience.

Silent Souls is an ordeal to watch and Fedorchenko rightly sees to it that we are not let off lightly. His production is thoughtful, meticulous and exposed, reinforced by sparse landscapes, near-bare sets and nude, unapologetically flawed human bodies. There is something charged and elemental about this film – which reaches breaking point during a crucial scene in which Miron remembers pouring vodka on a ripe, naked Tanya as a kind of bibulous prelude to love-making.

While such scenes could come off crude or unintentionally amusing in the hands of less able actors, there is not a feeble performance anywhere. Fedorchenko’s genius is for revealing character through small talk. He reminds us that we are all improvisers, muddling through. And Tsurilo and Sergeyev are naturals for this kind of work – with the tiniest of facial adjustments they can indicate a lifetime of emotion.

And this is just as well because in this film – despite the fact that they are more than happy to recount every lurid detail of their sexual exploits – no one talks freely about their feelings. Given that there’s such an emphasis on stoicism, audiences instead are left to piece the story together themselves through metaphors, most of which involve natural elements of the never-ending landscapes – bunting birds, surging rivers and roaring fires.

Luckily, each scene is filmed in beguiling, dreamy fashion – there are several evocative uses of rear projection, and the widescreen photography is astonishing throughout – and it makes for easy watching. In fact, the rough, rural sounds and hushed minutiae of this movie, lulling and blanket-like, enable a blissed-out state of receptiveness – you may be unsure if you’ve seen it or dreamed it.
    
_JENNIFER PETERSON-WARD