La Fin du silence (2011)
Directed by Roland Edzard

Film Review

First time film director Roland Edzard shows great promise with this unstintingly brutal portrait of family disharmony and adolescent estrangement, although his efforts are slightly undermined by a reluctance to allow us into the hermetically sealed world of his protagonists.  Equipped with a shoulder-mounted camera and the most oppressive natural setting, Edzard does a great job of creating a stark, loveless environment in which his characters are condemned to play out a Greek tragedy, but the fact that we never get to understand the relationships between them or why they behave as they do prevents us from engaging fully with their predicament.

La Fin du silence is an intensely atmospheric work which effectively uses its location, in the Vosges mountains, to emphasise the emotional detachment and isolation of the characters, but its appeal soon wears thin when it becomes apparent that we are never going to be given the opportunity to get to know the protagonists.  Instead, we are forced to observe them, from a distance, and struggle to make sense of the excessively violent psychodrama they enact for our benefit.  That we are able to engage with the film at all is entirely down to the convincing performances from a talented team of actors, who all manage to bring substance to their characters with virtually no dialogue.

Most impressive is Franck Falise, who, as the psychotic rebellious son Jean, is vaguely reminiscent of James Dean in Elia Kazan's East of Eden (1955) (Steinbeck's novels being the most visible influence on the film) - albeit a far less sympathetic model.  There is a dangerous allure to Falise's charismatic screen persona which Edzard exploits to the full as he clumsily ratchets up the tension to its shocking climax.  Jean is clearly a threat, but we never find out how much of a threat he poses until the very end of the film.  By refusing to give his characters much in the way of comprehensible dialogue, Edzard drastically weakens his film's coherence, so that whilst the film is visually striking, it fails to grab and hold the spectator's attention in the way it should.  Watching this film is a harsh and joyless experience, but there is no doubt that Edzard has considerable talent and a distinctive approach to filmmaking.

Film Synopsis

The Klein family lives in a remote house on the edge of a forest in the Vosges mountains.  Jean, the youngest of two sons, is always causing trouble and one day he is expelled from the family home.  When he threatens to set fire to the house, he is set upon by his father and older brother.  Badly bruised by this assault, Jean seeks sanctuary at a neighbouring house belonging to Nils and Ida, who invite him to join them on a hunting expedition.  When night falls, Jean heads back home and is blamed when his mother's car is set alight in a storm.  Armed with a shotgun, Jean disappears into the mountains.  When he returns, he is ready to take his revenge...