Silent Wedding: Movie Review

Silent Wedding: Movie Review

Silent Wedding
Rating: 6/10
Cast: Doru Ana, Meda Victor
Director: Horatiu Malele
Set in 1953 Romania, Silent Wedding is perhaps one of the strangest, most haunting films I've seen so far this year.
It's the tale of Iancu and Ana - whose lusty relationship is the talk of the small farming village where they live - Iancu's been with other women but the elders of the village want him to settle down with Ana.
So, following negotiations in a pub, a date's set for the pair to marry - and preparations begin.
However, during the start of the ceremony, a visitor to the village tells them Stalin is dead - and consequently declares seven days of national mourning, where nothing can happen.
That includes Ana and Iancu's wedding - but the villagers scheme a way to get through the big day. They will hold the wedding - but it'll all be done in silence so as not to attract any attention.
Silent Wedding is a surreal piece in places - and is outrageously inventive. There's a kind of nuttiness to it which actually seems in context with the story.
And yet it's based on quite a sad premise - intially the story is told because the film begins with a camera crew coming across an abandoned factory in a wasteland with elderly people scattered (alive) along the road. As the crew investigates and talks to them, the mayor recounts to them how the factory came into being - and how the village was left behind.
So it's a bittersweet tale which also appears to be diametrically opposed to the comedy of The Three Stooges and Laurel and Hardy during the wedding. The villagers use rags around the cups to toast the couple - and a toast is passed on in the form of Chinese whispers.
These are part and parcel of the odd moments which are littered through the film and which give it an overall feel of something a bit different and a little quirky.
Silent Wedding is all about the characters - the richness and hilarity of their emotional connections within the confines of their village life- so it's a particular jolt at the end when it comes back to the wasteland where they used to be.
Silent Wedding won't be to everyone's taste - though if you give it 90 minutes of your day, you'll probably feel like you've seen something different, a bright and breezy alternative and antidote to what's currently at the cinema.