Silence is the new installment from friend and film maker Omar Sherif. Happened to watch it yesterday. A short film that follows the suit of his other movies. Even here he is adamant that a social message should be the final move where the movie gets it’s closure. Though here I felt the message could have been more obvious. May be he should not wait till the end to initiate that Social dialogue with his audience.

It could also be my fault as I had been contemplating about watching the 2005 Bengali movie Nisshabd a few days back and also was looking forward to ‘A quiet place’ hitting the theaters next week when Omar’s ping comes in my messenger. “Watch my new film ‘Silence'” it said. So I had the theme of both those movies in the back of my mind when I watched this one.

I know Omar is a fan of Tarkovsky, and I always tell him that I like a slow pace in full length movies but like it fast when it comes to shorts. And this time with a movie named silence I was sure he was not going to increase the pace of silence 🙂 But I was wrong.. Silence is much faster than his other films.

‘Hope Against Hope’ is the memoir of Nadezhda Mandelstam of her life with husband and poet Osip Mandelstam during the Stalin era when Osip was subjected to continuous persecution. In the book she writes “I decided it is better to scream. Silence is the real crime against humanity.”

What Omar wishes to bring out (I think) is that the crime of silence has several layers to it with victims and perpetrators in each layer. A silence that is a choice and a silence that is not a choice one over the other like an onion. What if silence is forced on you by an enforcer who is the victim who comes before you.

After writing the review and rethinking on the film, I guess probably Omar’s intention was that the viewer should not immediately get the message as the final credits roll in. Like me…. Probably he wants people to talk about it. Like throwing something out that you need to peel in order to reveal.

I asked him the same and he said he wants to only reveal the essential. I said good… It serves well for guys like me so we can write about it using our creativity 🙂

Omar’s other films include Oral (a person) and Porul (the meaning). Omar, keep up the work and hope to see more of you….. Pace it up a bit more and make the social dialogue a bit more obvious somewhere midway and leave the viewer with a question rather than a riddle. All the best!!!!

Categories: Reviews

Tags: omar sherif, Silence movie