“I’d love to hear your take on Silent Light, the new Carlos Reygadas film. Or his other work, for that matter. I just saw it at the Film Forum, and am still trying to decide what I thought of it. A few people in the theatre were falling asleep, and as I left a few were looking at the blown-up Manohla Dargis N.Y. Times review, giving each other bewildered looks while words like ‘terrible’, ‘pretentious’ and whatnot slipped out.
“I don’t agree with them, but I still haven’t quite made up my mind about it. Reygadas is definitely into meditative as an end in itself, and I think people were having trouble with the way he lingers on his shots, and how many of them are more or less stationary images. And the silence of it all. Like Battle in Heaven, there are huge stretches with absolutely no underscoring — a very powerful choice.
“It seemed to be too much for a lot of people, though, to sit and look at a hand for 20 seconds, and then a table for a bit longer, all of it in a more or less silent environment.
“It’s not something I’ll say I’m over the moon about, but I do find it very, very interesting, Now that I’ve seen what the movie and its story are, I definitely intend to have another go-round to take a closer look at the way he put it together.” — HE reader Eric Gilde in a letter received this afternoon.
