Silent Friend at AMC Westminster

Shout out to Yvonne, our intrepid DCC member who uncovered this hidden gem with a limited release!

To watch Hungarian director Ildikó Enyedi‘s “Silent Friend” is to sit in deep, Zen-like meditation; much like its trio of protagonists, whose existential malaise each centers around the same ginkgo tree planted in the botanical gardens outside Germany’s Marburg University, we’re invited to contemplate not just our connections with each other, but with the nature from which we sprung. How do we communicate? What does connection look like, on a molecular level? Does history, gender, and civilization find ways to separate us from our natural state? And how can we return to that—if it’s even possible?
Enyedi, who came to prominence with her Oscar-nominated 2017 feature “On Body and Soul,” seems similarly interested in the rhythms of biology here, whether fauna or flora (or both). The film is bookended with microscopic closeups of a plant sprouting from a seed: humble beginnings, mind you, but with time and care, it can grow into something as mighty as the tree around which our characters fixate. The first of these literal and subtextual tree-huggers is Dr. Tony Wong (the inimitable Tony Leung Chiu-wai), a steady but lonely neuroscientist professor whose nascent project at Marburg University is set back by the 2020 COVID pandemic. With all his fellows and research cut off, and only a tetchy relationship with the university’s suspicious caretaker Anton (Sylvester Goth), Wong retreats into isolation, sinking himself into the study of the gingko tree’s biochemical signals using improvised scientific devices. His previous work was in studying the brainwaves of pre-natal babies; he sees similar potential in the gingko.
As stately and serene as those scenes are—Gergely Pálos’ crisp digital photography highlighting the verdant greens of the forest contrasted with the isolating whites and earth tones of the university—it’s but one part of the story. (****/**** Roger Ebert.com)

Tickets available online and at the box office. (I am D4)

There is free parking at the theater

This is a longish movie, we can hang out in lobby for debrief or head to local venue if people are inclined.