Silent Land

“Guests are aways wel­come in our town,” police chief Giuseppe (Clau­dio Bigagli) tells Anna (Agniesz­ka Żulews­ka) some way into Aga Woszczyńska’s Silent Land (Cicha Ziemia). Indeed, this small town on an Ital­ian island is very accom­mo­dat­ing to Anna and her hus­band Adam (Dobromir Dymec­ki), vaca­tion­ing there and bring­ing much-need­ed cap­i­tal into the area.

This com­mu­ni­ty hap­pi­ly embraces afflu­ent tourists like this Pol­ish cou­ple – obvi­ous out­siders, giv­en their blonde hair, pale skin and inabil­i­ty to speak the local tongue. Locals meet the priv­i­leged tourists’ every demand, and wel­come them into local customs.

At one point Anna is pulled – not entire­ly will­ing­ly – into a tra­di­tion­al dance in the town square. Fabio (Mar­cel­lo Romo­lo), land­lord of the lux­u­ri­ous­ly appoint­ed vil­la that they have rent­ed, even agrees to have the emp­ty pool quick­ly repaired and filled for them, despite a local water short­age. Yet when ille­gal labour­er Rahim (Ibrahim Keshk), fin­ish­ing off his work at this pri­vate pool, suf­fers a freak, fatal acci­dent, it will become clear, as div­ing instruc­tor Arnaud (Jean Marc Barr) points out, that, ​“The island is safe, except for those who aren’t invited.”

Co-writ­ing with Piotr Litwin, Woszczyńs­ka is unflinch­ing in her exam­i­na­tion of the haute bourgeoisie’s indif­fer­ence to the lives of the pro­le­tari­at and the mar­gin­alised, even as her cin­e­matog­ra­ph­er Bar­tosz Swiniars­ki deploys wide shots to keep every­body at a cool dis­tance under the hot sun. In oth­er words, Silent Land plays very much in the key of Austria’s Michael Haneke, chill­ing­ly expos­ing class enti­tle­ment and the aloof­ness that the rich main­tain – even in an emer­gency – from the grub­by mor­tal­i­ty of the poor.

Casu­al­ly racist and dis­tract­ed by mil­i­tary manoeu­vres on the island, the police just want to close the case quick­ly, and are more annoyed than inter­est­ed when CCTV footage emerges that con­tra­dicts Adam and Anna’s ver­sion of events. With the author­i­ties prov­ing alto­geth­er less curi­ous about the tourists’ sus­pi­cious con­duct than the evi­dence would require, Anna and Adam too choose at first to look away from the real­i­ty of what has hap­pened, fill­ing their stay with danc­ing, din­ing, div­ing and fucking.

Yet as the real­i­sa­tion dawns that they are in the clear, their nag­ging con­sciences take over, mak­ing their actions ever more odd. The guilt, shame and trau­ma of their own amoral self­ish­ness keep bob­bing back to the sur­face, and they must learn again not only to live with them­selves and each oth­er, but also – in the haunt­ing final sequence – with a stranger who, despite his dif­fer­ences from them in class, race and lan­guage, will now for­ev­er be a guest at their table, wel­come or otherwise.