Silent Friend
When visiting neuroscientist Dr. Tony Wong (Tony Leung Chiu-wai, "Hard Boiled," "In the Mood for Love") is stranded at Marburg University during COVID, his frequent visits to its botanical garden unveil a "Silent Friend."
Laura's Review: A
Hungarian writer/director Ildikó Enyedi's ("On Body and Soul") poetic reflection on the interconnectedness of the natural world and man's attempts to interpret it with machines weaves through three separate generations, all photographed on different media by cinematographer Gergely Pálos ("A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence"). This meditative film will have audiences reconsidering the flora and fauna all around us, perhaps even reviving the late 60's and 1970's practice of talking to plants.
Enyedi and her editor Károly Szalai weave back and forth among the years 1908, 1972 and 2020, Pálos giving each a distinct look by utilizing black and white 35mm, 16mm color and digital photography respectively. Macrophotography of a germinating seed (some of the brief cutaways sprinkled throughout are reminiscent of the French 1996 documentary "Microcosmos") opens the film, then cuts to the face of an adorable baby, its head covered in sensors to measure its brain waves as it watches Dr. Wong amusing it with Steiff puppets. Later he will explain Lantern Light Consciousness to his college class by having them toss a large, glowing ball around the darkened room, then telling them that while adults will focus just on what that light is exposing, babies take everything in without filtering, something Enyedi appears to be suggesting for us all.
After establishing Dr. Wong right before COVID isolates him, we journey back to a sepia tinted 1908 where Grete (Luna Wedler) sits before a panel of old, male professors evaluating her for admittance during the university's first year allowing female students. Asked about the Linnaean classification system, Grete demonstrates her botanical knowledge, but these patriarchal professors keep trying to paint her with negative feminine tropes, Professor Winterhalter (Rainer Bock, "The White Ribbon") provoking a sexually frank comparison between plants and humans clearly meant to embarrass her. He fails, but the sexual nature of both plants and humans will continue to reverberate throughout the film, thankfully in a far more positive, if no less provocative, manner. Grete will compose herself on a bench by the same giant ginko tree Dr. Wong is drawn to. Later, the young teacher (Johannes Hegemann) who is clearly smitten with her will tell her Winterhalter's wife is famed for her promiscuity, something which has curdled his sensibilities, and that 'his little game' didn't work on her as she was the only one of 7-8 female applicants who has been accepted. But the era's sexism follows her to her boarding situation, her landlady throwing her out on false charges which lead her to taking a job as photography studio owner Herr Fuchs' (Martin Wuttke, "Inglourious Basterds'" Hitler) assistant in exchange for room and board. Fascinated with the glass plate process and Herr Fuchs' demonstration of how to use lights, Grete begins to make close-up portraits of both plants and her own body. (Most amusingly, Fuchs has a cat named Zeiss!)
We meet Hannes (Enzo Brumm) in 1972, standing out awkwardly on the campus in a suit. He'll run into the stunning Gundula (Marlene Burow), who happens to live in the same old home as he, but when she asks him about his relationship to plants, he claims to hate both them and animals, the labor involved in growing up on a farm having turned him against them. But he is obviously attracted to the more outgoing young woman and, invited to see the geranium plant on her windowsill where she is graphing its reactions to external stimuli, appears to take an interest, but after freezing when she extends a sexual invitation, agrees to care for the plant when she goes off hiking, instead becoming obsessed with the sensations he elicits in her plant.
Back in Marsburg, Dr. Wong will awaken as light gradually makes its way into his bedroom, Lantern Light Consciousness drawing our eye to various points in his room (Pálos repeats this shot in another bedroom in another era). He has found plant biologist Dr. Alice Sauvage (Léa Seydoux, "No Time to Die") online and asks for her help, wishing to meld their two areas of expertise by monitoring the large ginko tree in the botanical garden. But after hooking it up to his equipment, he will suddenly hear from his assistant/translator Jule (Yun Huang), stating that the Dean is concerned about his isolation, then admitting a complaint has been filed about his 'odd behavior,' a complaint that could only have been made by the university's custodian, Anton (Sylvester Groth, "Inglourious Basterds'" Joseph Goebbels), who was already eyeing Wong suspiciously when he arrived. But as the two scientists engage in a long distance friendship in English, Alice also isolated with a three year-old, Anton begins to warm up to Wong when the professor uses his phone to translate his Cantonese speech into German. Alice is stunned to learn Wong's ginko is a female, stating botanical gardens never have females because of the foul smell they emit. She offers to 'send him some sperm,' which we will later see Wong and Anton carefully hand germinating the tree with, the two quietly bonded atop ladders within its branches.
Enyedi's direction and screenplay are beautifully complemented by Pálos' award worthy cinematography, which itself becomes part of her narrative. He paints the ancient German town of Marsburg like a fairy tale, lush flora foregrounding the golden glow of lights twinkling in the distance. Character media, from Grete's glorious black and white prints to Wong's computerized brain waves are lovingly incorporated, the ginko's sexual excitement taking the shape of the tree's leaves. Kristóf Kelemen and Gábor Keresztes's score celebrates nature from the minute to the majestic. Everyone in the large ensemble adds exactly what is needed, from Leung's calm methodology to Wedler's focused curiosity and Brumm's unleashed joy. "Silent Friend" is a rewarding experience which keeps revealing itself long after it ends.
1-2 Special released "Silent Friend" in NY on 5/8/26, expanding in subsequent weeks.
