Indy Film Fest: Hear the Silence (Höre die Stille)
For Indy Film Fest showtimes and tickets, please click here.
The war movie genre is nothing new to cinema, but what Ed Ehrenberg has done with “Hear the Silence” is unique. Instead of opening the film with bullets whizzing past the camera and the flames of bursting bombs filling the background, Ehrenberg begins his story of a group of German soldiers lost behind enemy lines during WWII trying to find their way home with just a subtle voiceover.
We meet up with Lt. Markus Wenzel and his company of soldiers as they stumble upon a village in the Ukraine filled with only women and children. It's alluded that the men of the village were eradicated by the Soviet forces, but we don't really learn the truth of their fate. The troop is tired and hungry and needs a place to get things together in order to continue its journey.
Once in the village, the soldiers strip the town of its weapons, save one, and set up camp in one of the houses — requesting that all the children stay with them as insurance so that the women won't do anything rash. Their appearance divides the women — with some more than willing to help and a select few hellbent on getting the soldiers out of the village as soon as they can.
Spearheading this movement is Martha (Clarissa Langenohl). As she tries to build an alliance and bring more followers into the fold, her plan hits a snag when another woman restrains her and locks her away in an attempt to keep the peace. But even that can't stop the inevitable from happening to the quaint village.
The soldiers finally find a quicker way to get out of the village, and it seems that the women will make it out of the encounter until an unexpected death sends shockwaves through the troops. Where the focus was once to leave the village as quickly as they could, they focus now shifts to just one thing — retribution. It's a decision that will not work out well for either side.
The film is beautiful with a mesmerizing, stark, snowy landscape. The film also benefits from its utilization of buildings and settings of the Museum of Folk Architecture in Sanok, Poland.
Although Langenohl's performance as Martha is abbreviated during the middle of the film, her powerful and passion-filled performance is wonderful. Lars Doppler as Lt. Wenzel is equally as powerful and creates a wonderful bad guy against whom to root.
Ehrenberg's film, from a script by Axel Melzenger and Julia Peters, is slow — at times too slow — but when the film reaches its final act, the payoff is worth the wait. It's not your stereotypical war movie, but that's what makes it special.