Some truth in advertising from your humble critic: Silent River isn’t going to be for everyone. You kinda have to know yourself as a viewer going into it. For me, it was suspenseful, a slow burn – a two- hour film that took an hour to start answering the many questions I had, but I didn’t care. I wanted to see where it was going.
I usually shy away from films that name-drop David Lynch in their press notes; it usually just means that you’re about to watch a flick that’s weird AF and may or may not make sense when it’s all over.
But writer/director Chris Chan Lee has done much better than that. I mean, I’m still not sure I pieced it together correctly at the end, but I felt like the journey was more important than the destination.
Speaking of which: the opening scene is one long, continuous shot; we’re looking out the front windshield of a car that’s driving on a desert highway with seemingly no destination in mind. The camera hangs for a couple minutes or more with no cuts, just looking over the driver’s shoulder.
Our driver is a man called Elliot (West Liang) and he’s about to stop at a roadside motel for an indefinite period of time. It’s not a creepy roadside motel like you usually see in the movies; it’s a normal, modern establishment that you’d see in any city.
Elliot, we learn, has been left by his wife and has lost his business. Dude is not doing well. When he finally gets her, Julie (Amy Tsang), says she has left him for another man.
Later, while taking his meal alone in the motel restaurant, he makes eye contact with a gorgeous, mysterious woman called Greta (Amy Tsang again in a dual role.) They will become sort of companions in a very odd way. Greta has a secret that she needs help with, and I will not reveal it here.
There are a couple more reveals that must go unmentioned here. Do I wish the film had been trimmed and gotten where it was going at a more brisk pace? Yeah, I do. But, as I say, I never lost interest in where the story was going and, quite often, WTF I was meant to take away from it.
Liang is a skilled actor and we feel his disorientation and pain (literal pain, too – he’s got an injured leg with a knee brace.) Tsang is more than just gorgeous – she’s multi-layered and carries a femme fatale mystique with sexy ease. I could watch a whole movie of her reading a script.
The actors and the desert landscapes are gorgeously photographed by Norbert Shieh, and the haunting score by Brian Ralston is an important element to the film’s ambiance. Love it or hate it, this is a handsomely appointed production.
So, what kind of viewer are you? Do you like an art house film, semi-inscrutable, but it piques your curiosity? And do you not necessarily care if you 100% get it? That often describes me, and so I walk away with mixed feelings that, nevertheless, leads to a positive 3 out of 4 stars from me.
Silent River was released theatrically on October 14th and Premieres on VOD, Oct. 25th
