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Silent Light
EMAILPRINTPalisades Pictures, Tartan

Generally favorable reviews
Based on 14 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 27 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >
Movie Info
Genre(s): Drama
Written by: Carlos Reygadas
Directed by: Carlos Reygadas
Release Date:
Theatrical: January 7, 2009
DVD: September 8, 2009
Running Time: 120 minutes, Color
Origin: Mexico | France | Netherlands | Germany
Language(s): Low German | Spanish | French | English
Summary
RATING: Not Rated
Starring Cornelio Wall, Maria Pankratz, Miriam Toews, and Peter Wall
Johan and his family are Mennonites from the north of Mexico. Against the law of God and man, Johan falls in love with another woman. (Bac Films)
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database Official Studio Site
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias
At bottom, Silent Light is less about faith than matters of the heart, and in Reygadas' hands, the ache is bone-deep.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Chronicle Reyhan Harmanci
A film filled with beauty and pain that moves at the pace of molasses and snails. That is to say, some of it is in real time. Audiences would be advised to stay caffeinated.
Read Full Review >Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
What the film is really about is people who see themselves and their values as an organic whole. There are no pious displays here. No sanctimony, no preaching. Never even the word "religion." Just Johan, Esther and Marianne, all doing their best.
Read Full Review >Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips
Even with its limitations, I find Silent Light spellbinding.
Read Full Review >Village Voice J. Hoberman
The results are extraordinary. As understated as it is, the movie is both deeply absurd and powerfully affecting.
Read Full Review >The New York Times Manohla Dargis
The film was written, directed and somehow willed into unlikely existence by the extravagantly talented Carlos Reygadas, whose immersion in this exotic world feels so deep and true that it seems like an act of faith.
Read Full Review >New York Post V.A. Musetto
As is his custom, Reygadas uses a mostly nonprofessional cast; and, as expected, he draws remarkably realistic performances.
Read Full Review >The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Liam Lacey
Much of what happens in Silent Light can feel painstakingly mundane: milking cows, harvesting wheat, a long drive at night in and out of shadows. Yet throughout, there's a sense of something ominous impending, and while it remains gentle, the ending is genuinely startling.
Read Full Review >The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt
Reygadas has hitched his austere and protracted style to an allegorical tale of subtle strength and depth.
Read Full Review >Salon.com Andrew O'Hehir
It's amazingly beautiful and it tests your patience; both things are par for the course with Reygadas, After that, you've either surrendered to his idiosyncratic sense of rhythm, or you're out of there.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader J.R. Jones
You know you're in for a hard-core art film when you hear more people raving about its opening shot than the movie itself.
Read Full Review >Variety Scott Foundas
Reygadas' typically arresting widescreen visuals and the presence of non-pro actors speaking in German-derived Plautdietsch makes for an initially hypnotic combination, but the spell breaks its hold well before the end of the picture's inflated running time, signaling an endurance test for all but the most ascetic arthouse auds.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman
The stab at sublimity-by-proxy doesn't take.
Read Full Review >New York Magazine David Edelstein
This director is too calculating to hold our trust for long, and skepticism will kill transcendence every time.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 7.7 (out of 10) based on 27 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Sibyl P gave it an8:
Yes, the pace is slow, the resolution somewhat limited, but this is an unusual, beautiful film. The actors are not professional and what a relief from Hollywood emoting. Many shots are bold in their restraint, breaking convention. The language and look of the characters are a revelation. It takes us to a seemingly faraway time and place. And it was worth the price of admission for the wide shot of the cows coming in the barn. Risky, odd, inventive, this is a director's film. He worked magic with stop motion for dawn and dusk. Brilliant shots, memorable.
Warrior gave it a7:
It's amazingly beautiful and it tests your patience; both things are par for the course with Reygadas, After that, you've either surrendered to his idiosyncratic sense of rhythm, or you're out of there.
