Un Film on people trying to understand the world. Not to dominate it, not to take advantage of it, rather out of curiosity, for love – of knowledge and the world itself. The world is nature and nature, in Beautiful Silent friend by Ildikó Enyedi, one of the latest films presented in competitionis represented by A majestic Biloba ginkgo dominating a botanical garden in a German university city. The tree was, and is still the silent witness of the lives that for a century passed through that place.
The Hungarian director, who with My 20th century he had measured himself with the history of Europe In a period full of events – politicians, cultural, technological – through the fairy tale and fate of two identical twins separate and finally reunited, enchants (literally, and thanks also to Photography by Gergely Pálos) for two and a half hours interval different events long Three temporal axes.
In 2020, a neuroscientist by Hong Kong (Tony Leung Chi-Wai, the actor of In The Mood for Love, Which could also be a subtitle for this film), when it remains blocked in the historic university because of the pandemic, an unexpected experiment begins (usually deals with the mind of newborns) with the old tree. And he enters a relationship, before hostility, then of collaboration, with the custodian.
Tony Leung in Silent Friend.
In 1972, a student commissioned a study companion of observe and connect with the geranium on which she is carrying out an experiment. The results will be surprising, they will open – literally – doors. In 1908, the first woman admitted to the University (winning the prejudice of the frustrated professors) it discovers, through the lens of photography, the sacred patterns of the universe hidden also in the vegetables purchased on the market.
The harmony with which the author of Body and soul And Story of my wife Merge periods, relationships, human history and history of science It is mirrored in the spectacle of nature – the fronds agitated by the wind, the insects on their path – and in its sensuality. The vulgarity of men’s questions (who hope to put the student in difficulty asking for the meaning of “Poliandria”) is the antithesis of the beauty that Scientist Seydoux makes it accessible to his colleague, in charge of “pollining” the tree. That we discover to be female.
Nature breathes and in the cinemas where it will be projected Silent friend (In Italy it was purchased by Movies inspired, we hope that it distributes it as it deserves) The spectators will face With her.
A film about human curiosity
“It is a film made by human beings (by an incredibly open and dedicated team) for our fellow men: the spectators” said the director. «We recognize and humbly accept our specific perceptive limits. This film speaks, with the help of bright and sonorous waves accessible to the eyes and the human ear, of the perceptions of the world outside of these limits. We recognize that we are not the absolute reference: ours is one of the many worlds, equally valid. What does it mean to be a tree? We don’t know. So, we will not show it ».
A scene from the 1908 episode of Silenti Friend.
«We instead show human curiosity, i Touching and imperfect attempts to establish a link, to recognize the “other” and accept that for the trees, the mysterious “other” is us. We show glimpses of over a century of the botanical garden of a university. A place that has always been (“university”) the fulcrum of free and unlimited human curiosity, of science. In times when it is thus dangerously questioned and attacked, we would also like Attend the attention not only to the importance, but also on the beauty and naive and reckless strength of scientific research. It can help us get off from the frightening and dizzying location at the top of the pyramid towards a fairer and more welcoming place: be part of this world».