In more than 48 hours I’ve failed to develop a visceral reaction to Marleen Gorris’ A Question of Silence (1982) – certainly a disappointment considering the description of “polarized audiences” noted in the 1001 text in relation to the film. Though it was a landmark piece of feminist cinema in its day, the picture has aged poorly, with dated themes and wardrobes the primary culprits. However, I suppose that what’s most disappointing about the movie is that while viewing it I never didn’t know exactly where it was going, and by the time the somewhat erratic behavior of the final scene arrived, I hadn’t lost interest so much as I never really had any in the first place.
Supposedly the exaggeration of true events in Holland, A Question of Silence concerns the fates of three women who are arrested for a horrific crime. In various flashbacks the audience sees how these women, almost at random, attacked and killed the owner of a small dress boutique. When they’re arrested they don’t even know each other’s names, and the crime it seems could hardly have been planned. None of the women particularly seem to mind being arrested, and each willingly signs a confession. However, when the court appoints a female psychologist to evaluate their respective mental states, she finds that their reactions to incarceration are distinct. “One doesn’t talk at all, another talks too much, and the other rambles on about anything,” she tells her husband. The only clear connection between the women is an acute disdain for men, manifesting in different elements of their dispositions. Obviously they’ve each committed the crime as a response to oppression at the hands of men, and their interviews with the shrink don’t seem to unveil any other relevant motive. Flashbacks of the crime appear to confirm that it was committed as the result of a discrete shoplifting bust, and that the boutique owner was simply the unfortunate victim of unleashed repressed rage. As the psychologist continues to interview the women, her own sense of the male-dominated social structure is fine-tuned, and though she comes to understand the attackers’ motivations, she can only conclude that they are in fact sane, and were so at the time of the murder.
Eventually A Question of Silence descends into a dull courtroom drama that pits the psychologist and to a lesser extent her findings against an all-male judiciary council that is (surprise!) officiated by the associates of her attorney husband. However, the film has its problems long before any gavel falls. In the case of all four primary female characters, the interviews that lead up to the trial don’t reveal any compelling information about them. The growing sympathy of the analyst is predictable, and the other women are two- dimensional at best. It isn't even interesting that one refuses to speak. When another reveals that shortly after the killing she accepted $700 to have sex with a john, it doesn’t expose anything about her. She was excited so much by the act of exerting physical power over one man that she chose immediately to exert sexual power over another. Freud wouldn’t exactly be blown away.
In a Hollywood film this sex scene would be shot to reveal as much skin as R-rated parameters would allow, and would come just before a revelation that the crime had really been elaborately planned. It’s commendable that Gorris didn’t take this route, but it’s clear from the beginning that she isn’t interested in the Hollywood audience. I have the suspicion that as a male I’m not necessarily her intended audience either. This doesn’t make the film bad, as much as it makes it difficult for me to connect with, but I feel that its problems go beyond subject matter. Even at 92 minutes this film drags a bit, and I was reminded of Ebert’s contention that no good movie is too long, and no bad movie short enough. I suppose in that, I’ve described my feelings on A Question of Silence and developed about as visceral an opinion as I’m going to.
Language: Dutch (primary)/English
Runtime: 92 Minutes
Available @Youtube.com (Dubbed)
Grade: 1.5 Hats Off
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