Silent Friend (Stille Freundin)

 

Director Ildikó Enyedi

director on the set

Director with Tony Leung

Director with Léa Seydoux

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

SILENT FRIEND (Stille Freundin)               B+                                                               Hungary  Germany  France  China  (147 mi)  2025  d: Ildikó Enyedi

What would you do if you wanted to connect with a being but had no common language?           —Dr. Tony Wong (Tony Leung)

With no explanation or advance warning, viewers won’t have a clue what this film is about, as it’s a collision of science and neurobiology studying the communication of plants, which is a whole new world of exploration, like outer space or deep sea underwater, and not one that makes a whole lot of sense to most of us, as it’s simply unexplored territory.  To do this cinematically, without a whole lot of scientific detail or explanation, defies the odds, but what really stands out is the superb choice in casting, as these are actors who convey so much meaning on their faces without uttering a word, allowing viewers to draw their own conclusions without a director imposing their own commentary.  It may come as some surprise that Hungarian filmmaker Ildikó Enyedi, maker of the Berlin Golden Bear 1st Prize winning film On Body and Soul (Teströl és lélekröl) (2017), is in her 70’s, which may explain the rather philosophic and contemplative outlook here, with both films balancing between reality and dreams, between body and mind, without ever getting lost in mere mood, combining a poetic visual language with philosophical themes around people and nature. Attempting to understand an inter-connection of all living things, unraveling in an unhurried pace, this is told in a triptych spanning over a century, with each segment set in a different time period, united by a centuries-old Ginkgo biloba tree, one of the oldest tree species on Earth that can live more than 3000 years, originating in the mountains of China, where they were saved from extinction by Buddhist and Taoist monks planting them near their monasteries, viewed as a “living fossil” that has remained virtually unchanged for over 290 million years, outliving the dinosaurs as the sole survivor of an entire ancient plant lineage, standing in a botanic garden at the Alter Botanischer Garten Marburg, a historic arboretum and botanical garden maintained by the University of Marburg in Germany, one of the oldest universities in the world.  As the central figure of the film, standing in all its glory, some 50 to 80 feet high, the film has a way of observing those who pass by, observe, and study this tree, becoming a very quiet and meditative film that may have limited appeal.  But for those who can appreciate such a radical approach, this is a minimally plotted film that reaches out to all the senses, asking us to reconsider the plant life and natural world all around us, filled with so much we still don’t understand, perhaps filled with a consciousness not too dissimilar from our own, embedded with secrets that lend itself to further study.  What gets scrutinized here is how the life of a tree and the life of an academic institution change over time, adding new layers that weren’t there before, both becoming living and breathing lifeforms.  The way the film is shot, however, gives the school a very modern look, where this is a juxtaposition of old and new, becoming something of a visual bonanza, with equal parts academic and the purely sensorial, beautifully shot on different film mediums by Gergely Pálos, who also shot Roy Andersson’s abstractly surreal About Endlessness (Om det oändliga) (2019), using 35mm black and white in the 1908 period, 16mm in the 1972 period, and digitally for 2020, including extensive use of time-lapse photography, where some shots are even filmed from the tree’s perspective.  Interestingly, without any fanfare, all the women in the film are primarily seen as pioneers, however, rather than promote feminism, this never gets bogged down into a message film, but instead becomes more of an instructive art piece that helps us appreciate the natural world around us, which may transcend all political ideologies or societal conflicts, becoming a serene experience with our “silent friends.”      

In a collaborative production involving Germany, France, Hungary, and China, the film opens through the pensive eyes of Dr. Tony Wong (Hong Kong cinema legend Tony Leung, long associated with Wong Kar-wai, making a rare appearance in a Western film in a role written specially for him), an esteemed neurologist from Hong Kong who arrives at the German university as a visiting professor, who studies how infant brains function and how they absorb information, seen studying the brain wave patterns of newborns as he provides stimulation from puppets, which he describes as lantern-like consciousness, or moving through the different stimuli, and then comparing that to how adults see the world around us, which he refers to as spotlight (or single point) consciousness.  Colorful images are projected onto his computer while an electronic soundtrack by Hungarian composers Gábor Keresztes and Kristóf Kelemen weaves a musical interlude connecting him to the world around him, from the plentiful students wandering the canvas grounds to the world of giant trees filling the gardens, only to be stranded there when COVID hits in 2020, unable to continue his work, suddenly seen wearing a mask, so his interest turns to the natural world around him, taking regular visits to the garden grounds, becoming fascinated by an old ginkgo tree that was planted in 1832.  What follows is an ultra-crisp black and white sequence at that same German university, taking us back to 1908 as botany student Grete (Luna Wedler) is being interviewed by an all-male panel of professors to become the university’s first female student almost 400 years after the university was founded, skillfully providing detailed answers, yet unspoken prejudices hang heavily in the air and color every question, as the professors get a big kick out of trying to humiliate her and make her uncomfortable with sexual language, especially when they compare a flower’s petals to “the bridal bed” and ask her to evaluate 20 men in the same bed with a single woman, wondering what she thinks of that, where she quickly retorts that they’re speaking of plants, not humans, which sharply cuts through the crap.  Her quick-wittedness and scientific expertise impresses the professors, yet sexism and misogyny make clear just how hostile academia is to her.  Nonetheless, as the lone female in a school filled with probing male eyes, she is viewed differently, paying more attention to her behavior and the way she speaks, and formally dresses, than what she has to say, which is routinely ignored, as none view her as a scientific scholar in the making.  Moving to 1972, Hannes (Enzo Brumm, in his first major role) is a naïve, working class, young literature student who hopes to study poetry, evoking Goethe and Rilke, displaying a certain small-town awkwardness in the presence of more free-spirited, counterculture student protests and casual drug use, where he comes in contact with his housemate, Gundula (Marlene Burow), a liberated and confident botanist who is studying plant life, experimenting with plant consciousness by wiring up a geranium in her room, with a machine registering the changing sensor readings, much like a lie detector test, a hypothesis that Dr. Wong will expand upon decades later.  The film may be criticized for anthropomorphizing plants, imbuing them with human characteristics, where unless you’re an expert in this field, it’s hard to imagine that plants are as sentient as humans, yet we also send out space probe searches for signals and signs of life, which is precisely the point, as these sequences are cleverly weaved together through the power of imagining, where it’s the silences that stand out, as viewers read the subtle facial expressions of the protagonists, where so much is left unspoken and undefined.  While it veers towards experimental cinema, it’s a surprisingly humane film that features some outstanding performances.

Listed at #36 from the Sight & Sound list of the best films of the year, inspired by the works of German photographer Karl Blossfeldt, with a little soul-searching from German forester Peter Wohlleben and pioneering Italian ecologist Monica Gagliano thrown in as well, the film premiered at the Venice Film Festival in September 2025 where it was described as “the tree movie,” winning the Fipresci Prize, while Luna Wedler won the Best Young Actress Award.  After the university interview, Grete takes refuge in the serene calmness of the ginkgo tree, which has an identifying label, Ginkgo biloba, 1832, followed by an early morning meeting of Grete with other women under that same ginkgo tree, all changing into loosely fitting white outfits that resemble Greek goddesses, as they collectively do what resembles a Dionysian dance of the Furies in harmony with nature (Luna Wedler studied contemporary dance for two years), mannered in the neoclassicism of Isadora Duncan, Isadora Duncan (1877-1927). Equally impressive is a sequence of shots revealing the emptiness of the school hallways, and staircases, which resemble modern geometric shapes, or the cafeteria, with its giant windows looking outdoors over the rooftops at the surrounding trees, with Dr. Wong often seen sitting alone, where the vantage point shifts from him peering out to looking back in through his reflection off those massive windows, while we also see him in his sterile room where he lives alone.  We learn Hannes, who harbors a secret crush on his roommate, lives upstairs in an attic apartment in the same home as Gundula, who lives downstairs, but it features a transcendent moment of Hannes sitting alone listening to the music of Wagner, Lohengrin, Act I: Prelude YouTube (9:51), while Gundula sits in a window below smoking a cigarette, where the sound permeates through the house, attached gardens, and surrounding woods, offering a memorable yet haunting sensory moment.  Wong and Greta are also connected by images of them both standing under the same tree one hundred years apart, where it has grown massively, Silent Friend new clip official from Venice Film Festival 2025 - 1/2 YouTube (1:11).  Similarly, Hannes and Grete are connecting by a stone water fountain with water spurting out of a lion’s mouth, exquisitely merging the past and the present, Silent Friend new clip official from Venice Film Festival 2025 - 2/2 YouTube (1:37).  These sequences are balanced with outdoor nature shots of the substantial garden grounds outside the university, where the ginkgo tree becomes a primary subject in different shades of light, with a prominent sound design of birds chirping and bugs buzzing, and what resembles cosmic interludes between the sequences, with recurring, surreal images of the movement of tree roots, in all their entangled complexity, which resemble brain synapses, like a sentient being, where the stunning look of the film won a best cinematography award at the Chicago Film Festival 2025.  Besides the commonality of the ginkgo tree, what stands out in this film is how humans fail to adequately express themselves and communicate with one another, and while each protagonist is a scientist, in their own way they all have a vested interest in understanding the nature of plant life, making this a subversive sensory experience about the joy of thinking and feeling, with suggestions that communication exists in many forms, far beyond the limits of human language.  As much as we try to socialize and remain connected to others, sometimes what we most identify with is the expressive quality of the natural world, where the mammoth size of some trees dwarf their human counterparts.     

There are equally striking inharmonious sequences, like the scene of Grete getting scolded for what is presumed to be scandalous behavior by her stern, rooming house mother, as she returned home with wet clothing, which she immediately infers comes from promiscuous activity, throwing her out on the spot, no questions asked, sending her off into the street, which ultimately leads her to the storefront photography studio of Herr Fuchs (Martin Wuttke), an elderly man who is offering a position as a photographer’s assistant in exchange for room and board, quickly adapting to this new profession, taking pictures that merge art, science, and the human anatomy, using photography to uncover universal patterns in plants, inspired by British botanist/photographer Anna Atkins.  Dr. Wong also has video chats with a fellow colleague isolated by the pandemic, French botanist Dr. Alice Sauvage (Léa Seydoux), who essentially asks, “What if plants perceive us in the same way that we perceive them?”  The film doesn’t try to provide answers, instead showing that there might be things in life that we are not yet aware of, where we remain blind to the possibilities.  She’s interested in how plants commune and reproduce, and only appears on phone or computer screens, with Wong quickly adapting a new research study trying to match his own neurological patterns with the ginkgo’s activity by attaching an improvised brain scanner on it, suspecting a deep relationship, veering towards a psychedelic experience, between what is seen and unseen.  However, Anton (Sylvestor Groth), the university’s janitor and only other person remaining on campus, appears to be troubled by the research, finding Wong’s Asian or foreign presence equally distressing, and destroys the equipment.  Since there’s no one else on the grounds it’s not hard to figure out who’s responsible, but after utilizing his phone’s language translation tool and explaining what he’s up to, they actually end up working together harmoniously.  There’s a striking song that plays near the end to a sole image of the ginkgo tree in full autumnal colors, shot in a slow backwards zoom that reveals the magnificence of the entire tree, sung by the German industrial band Einstürzende Neubauten, featuring Blixa Bargeld, Blixa Bargeld - Ein Gleiches (Goethe Interpretation) YouTube (3:37), composed specifically for the film on a lyric by Goethe.  Though easily the most original musical selection is the use of a song by Guatemalan singer Gaby Moreno, Gaby Moreno - Til Waking Light YouTube (4:47), accentuating her powerhouse vocal range, moving from tender whispers to a soaring intensity, which is used twice, once during a scientific breakthrough mixed with moving electronic colors and again over the end credits.  The electronic imagery associated with plants recalls the final imagery of Wim Wenders’ Until the End of the World (Bis ans Ende der Welt) (1991) where brainwaves are transformed into a kaleidoscope of intersecting forms and shapes and colors.  What’s also impressive is the long list of plant species used in the film, which are all listed in the final credit sequence, a much longer list than the credited human actors.  The first hour or so is simply brilliant, masterfully directed, beautifully edited together by Károly Szalai, blending together abstract imagery, moving effortlessly between the time frames, where you never know what to expect, expressing a new world of discovery, but it does become more predictable and drags a bit by the end of a two and a half hour movie, but it’s still an unforgettable experience.  Dedicated to German producer Karl Baumgarten, affectionately known as Baumi, who was a leading European distributor of international arthouse films, founder of Pandora Film and The Match Factory, who began developing the project with Enyedi until he died in 2014, revived a decade later, drawing from European public money to finally come to fruition.

Silent Friend {Stille Freundin} Sylvester Groth-Enzo Brumm ... Entire film online with English subtitles, YouTube (2:27:04)

On Body and Soul (Teströl és lélekröl)

 

Director Ildikó Enyedi

Actress Alexandra Borbély

The director (center) with her primary cast

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ON BODY AND SOUL (Teströl és lélekröl)                        C+                                               Hungary  (116 mi)  2017  d: Ildikó Enyedi

A film that falls into the Yorgos Lanthimos The Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017) syndrome, overhyped and overpraised from the arthouse circuit, yet dreadfully disappointing when actually viewed, never living up to expectations, preposterous in parts, overly contrived and graphically cruel, intentionally making sure explicit scenes of raw and unedited violence are seen, including actual slaughterhouse scenes of sheer brutality, including blood-soaked and mechanized decapitation, where a crudely simplistic Hungarian romance or love story turns into a nefarious medical experiment gone wrong, yet somehow it wins the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival, while also winning the FIPRESCI Prize and the Ecumenical Jury Prize, and becoming Hungary’s official nominee in the Best Foreign Language Film category, actually making the cut into the final five.  Largely overshadowed by other headline-grabbing films, Sebastián Lelio’s A Fantastic Woman (Una Mujer Fantástica) (2017), the ultimate winner, allowing a trans actress to play a trans character onscreen, the pretentiously overwrought exercise in audience manipulation in Ruben Östlund’s The Square (2017), winner of the Palme D’or at Cannes, and Andrei Zvyagintzev’s mesmerizing  2018 Top Ten List #4 Loveless (Nelyubov) (2017), an indictment of corruption and an all-out assault on the state of tyranny in Russia.  The director’s first film in 18 years, eloquently shot by Máté Herbai, it devises its own logical constraints, remaining low-key and distant throughout, immersed in its own state of aloofness, creating a dreamlike atmosphere that has its own spectacular life under the surface, showing a male stag and a female doe linked together in complete natural harmony in a wintry forest covered with snow, where an expression of natural purity stands in stark contrast to the penned animals being butchered in the slaughterhouse and the mundane ennui we see taking place on the surface.  That’s at least an interesting set-up, because Hungary has such a rich tradition of folk tales, but it’s the setting that’s disturbing, a local slaughterhouse, where there’s a blasé indifference to the animals, even in the way its filmed, as there is meticulous detail shown in the gruesome aspects of the job.  The workers aren’t an enlightened group, lacking individuality, followers of systematic routine, poking fun at anyone who’s different, even showing outright contempt, revealing a cruel prejudice to their everyday existence, which may simply reflect ordinary working class views.  What stands out is the casual air of indifference, as they’re simply not bothered by what they do and never question how they think, as there’s an ingrained perception of narrow-minded conformity that defines who they are collectively as a society, a disturbing normality that might actually help explain how Hungarians so easily became Nazi sympathizers. 

As if in response to this character flaw, the story centers upon two damaged characters, neither one of whom falls into the category of typical movie leads, as they simply defy classification.  Endre (Géza Morcsányi, in real-life the director of the biggest literary publishing house in Hungary) is the older financial director of a Budapest slaughterhouse, exuding melancholy or sadness, partially disabled by a crippled arm, while Mária (Alexandra Borbély) is the new quality control inspector, young, blond, and attractive, yet painfully shy and socially inept, naïve and childishly innocent, averse to all physical contact, yet with a photographic memory, showing signs of autism, teased relentlessly by the workers (and laughed at by audiences, unfortunately), as she refuses to socialize with them.  Not only are they both introverts, they are wounded souls who may never heal from their obvious deficiencies, routinely seen alone at home, where they are each defined by their relentless loneliness.  Countering that impression is Sanyi (Ervin Nagy, Borbély’s real-life partner), an overly macho new hire who brags about feeling at ease with killing animals, showing no remorse whatsoever, which he thinks is a needed skill for the job, though Endre thinks that could actually present a problem.  His biggest friend and confident is the overly anxious head of Human Relations, Jenő (Zoltán Schneider), whose oversexed wife (Zsuzsa Járó) has seemingly slept with every man at the plant (including Endre), always giving excuses for coming home late, basically inversing the power dynamic in their marriage, as Jenő is forced to do the shopping and look after the kids.  One particular early scene stands out, with Endre in his office, becoming distracted, looking out the window where he sees Mária standing below avoiding the others, situated behind a pillar, avoiding the sunlight, receding into the shadows, where she just happens to look up and see Endre looking at her, causing her to retreat even further.  A scandalous incident occurs, requiring a police call, as a small quantity of mating powder has been stolen from the premises, where low level police corruption is the norm, as choice cuts of meat are immediately handed over to the investigating officer, bringing in a police psychiatrist Klára (Réka Tenki) to interview the entire staff, asking extremely personal questions, hoping to get to the bottom of it.  In a riff on sexual stereotypes, she turns out to be extremely sensuous, shapely and attractive, catching everyone off-guard with the candor of her questions, which are sexually obsessed.  Thinking they are playing a joke on her, she brings in both Mária and Endre after their initial interviews, as they are each having the exact same dream about two deer frolicking around a small lake in the woods, quickly discarding their testimony as blatantly falsified, yet the two of them are stunned to realize such an amazing coincidence.    

What follows is a shared secret that only grows in significance, as each continues to have identical dreams about each other in deer form, never really leading to copulation, just a sense of undisputed closeness.  It’s an awkward situation that plagues each of them, growing even more apparent in social settings that are repeated throughout the film, where Mária is always alone, never eating lunch with anyone, preferring to be by herself, yet suddenly the two are having lunch together, often seen through glass windows, revealing odd or refracted reflections, drawing eyes from everyone else, though he’s old enough to be her father.  Their initial interest is more surprise than anything else, as a morose sadness pervades an overwhelming emptiness in their lives, yet the exotic richness of their dreams gives them life, growing serious, taking an interest in the peculiarly developing inner life that connects them both, not really knowing what to do with it, feeling estranged from their own feelings.  In an amusing twist, Mária transfers actual conversations with Endre into role playing sessions at home, acted out with salt and pepper shakers or Lego dolls, assuming both roles, but exaggerating the male voice inflections, like creating her own cartoon universe.  Mária revisits her child therapist (Tamás Jordán), feeling comfortable speaking to him, not really interested in pursuing matters further with an adult psychiatrist, but certainly her curiosity is piqued, acting out in strange ways, blurting out things she would never ordinarily say.  Their lives are filled with heightened moments, expressing an intensity they’ve never really experienced before, remaining distant and apart, yet consumed by the other in a mythically developing subconscious relationship taking place entirely below the surface.  Very few films actually confront autism head-on, where patients have difficulty identifying and understanding what other people feel, yet they don’t dismiss what they fail to understand, they are simply stymied by it.  The animal dream sequences, mixed together with slaughterhouse images, comprise the first half, where the two worlds collide, creating obvious friction, with the dreams adding a rare delicacy to what we experience, but that’s less emphasized later in the film, as the two attempt to navigate something resembling an actual relationship, becoming more conventional, bridging the gulf of desperate loneliness, but Mária keeps hitting a wall, unnerved by what she can’t understand.  When her therapist suggests music as a way to “feel” outside her private reserve, the first selection she chooses is hard corps death metal music, yet she doesn’t even flinch, showing no emotion whatsoever, yet it’s a starkly humorous contrast.  When a record store clerk suggests something she prefers, more of a defiantly sad love song that veers into forbidden fruit territory, it leads her into a strange, new world, Laura Marling - What He Wrote / OST Testről és lélekről (Music video) YouTube (4:08), spiraling into a danger zone of horrors, where all appears lost, before miraculously being thrust out of the doldrums and into the light, as confoundingly weird as could possibly be imagined, where the convergence from mythical to reality is utterly preposterous.  This is a film where shock value passes for drama, showing little interest in building and sustaining emotional tension, becoming completely one-sided as Mária is clinically objectified, dissected, and examined like a specimen under a microscope, requiring a Kafkaesque metamorphosis.  Not for the faint of heart, or anyone who takes autism seriously, as this is more of a clinical fairy tale.