Silent Friend

Strange, enrapturing, simultaneously vast and minute, Enyedi’s latest spends a lot of time considering how we perceive our surrounding flora — but just as much on how it perceives us, which is where it starts to get a bit special, and even a bit sexy.

Immersing yourself in the daze of Silent Friend is like accepting a joyous gift, even if you don’t ultimately believe that plants can or want to communicate with us. With her exquisite new work, Ildikó Enyedi has achieved the improbable goal of making non-human, humanistic cinema that is inclusive and reverent without falling into idolization (of plants) or condemnation (of humans).

A profoundly moving experience about nuanced thematic explorations of connections that is exceptionally crafted. The somber filmmaking highlights an engaging atmosphere, and the narrative is layered, nuanced, and captivating. The performances are all exceptional.

Enyedi is a master stylist who knows how to create a certain mood, mixing visual poetry with deadpan humor, and big ideas with quotidian foibles, in a film that explores our mysterious relationship with both the green world and one another.

While the three sections don’t tie up narratively, nor strictly conclude as such, they leave plenty of ideas in their wake – and a multitude of entrancing images.

In the end, Silent Friend is a film of contradictions, profound, complex, and beautiful, but occasionally interminably boring.