Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		3.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		2.5
Overall		3.5

The Silence Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman August 20, 2018

Note: This film is available as part of Mohsen Makhmalbaf: The Poetic Trilogy.

Younger readers may not know the extremes some of us more “mature” film lovers used to have to go to enjoy international cinema. Typically in the days before home media (and frankly for a good long while after even things like laserdiscs and VHS tapes had been introduced), it used to be a requirement to scout newspaper ads for “coming attractions” at the local so-called Art House, where frequently any given film from overseas might only play for a night or two. One of the glories of the Blu-ray era, and of Arrow’s releases in particular, is the availability of rarer items from countries whose film industry has not been overly lionized, at least on this side of the pond. That’s the commendable case with The Poetic Trilogy, a really arresting set of three films from Iranian writer and director Mohsen Makhmalbaf. Two of the films in this set, 1996’s Gabbeh and 1998’s The Silence, are dramatic narratives that have a kind of whimsical, folkloristic quality to them. While perhaps fictionalized to a degree, 2012’s The Gardener is more of a documentary, though it addresses some of the same religious aspects that are at least subliminally presented in the earlier two films.

It’s not bad enough that a famous quote by William Congreve is often misattributed to one William Shakespeare, but kind of ironically, making the situation even worse is the fact that the quote itself is often misstated. In Congreve’s play The Mourning Bride, he gave the world one of its best remembered (well, sometimes, anyway) phrases about the magical spell that a good tune can weave:

Musick has charms to soothe a savage breast, to soften rocks, or bend a knotted oak.

(This same play also gave the world “Heav'n has no rage, like love to hatred turn'd, Nor hell a fury, like a woman scorned”, which has similarly been “transformed” through the years in a somewhat redacted form.) The power of music is a really fascinating subtextual element to The Silence, a film which is ostensibly about a little boy named Khorshid (Tahmineh Normatova) who is afflicted with blindness but who is still expected to help put bread on the table for his family.

There’s a little bit of an old time melodrama feeling with regard to some of the underlying plot dynamics of The Silence, with Khorshid and his mother (Goibibi Ziadolahyeva) being constantly threatened with eviction. What really gives the film its kind of hypnotic power, though, is the fact that Khorshid is almost painfully sensitive to sound, and he tends to escape not just into the sounds of the world, but most importantly, music. In fact Khorshid’s hearing is so acute he has a job at an local instrument shop, though his tendency to engage in aural flights of fancy has made him a less than ideal employee.

This is another film that, like Gabbeh, has an almost stunning visual sense, which in this case is blended with some really evocative sound design, but which nonetheless has certain deficits in the narrative department. The film has an almost “running gag” structure where Khorshid’s attempts to get to work are repeatedly interrupted. Still, this is a film with an undeniable spiritual element (there’s evidently a strong Sufi subtext which I’ll leave to others more conversant with this tradition to elucidate), and little Normatova is quite compelling as the pint sized hero.

The Silence Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

All three films in The Poetic Trilogy are presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Arrow Academy with AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.85:1 (Gabbeh and The Silence) and 1.78:1 (The Gardener). Arrow's insert booklet contains the following information on the transfers:

Gabbeh and The Silence were exclusively restored by Arrow Films and are presented in their original aspect ratio of 1.85:1 with mono sound. For Gabbeh, a 35mm internegative was scanned on an Arriscan in 2K resolution, and for The Silence, a 35mm interpositive was scanned on an Arriscan in 2K resolution. All film treatment and scanning was completed at Eclair in Paris. The films were graded and restored at Dragon DI, Wales. Picture grading was completed on a Pablo Rio System and restoration was completed using PFClean and Revival software. The original audio mixes were remastered from the optical sound negatives. All materials for these restorations were made available from MK2.

The Gardener is presented in its original aspect ratio of 1.78:1 with stereo audio. The master was prepared in High Definition by Makhmalbaf Film House and delivered to Arrow Films.

The Silence looks a bit less saturated than Gabbeh, but otherwise maintains the same generally very good to excellent detail levels that the earlier film showed. Fine detail on some of the woven fabrics the characters wear pop with a good deal of authenticity. This transfer shows less of the recurrent damage that Gabbeh did, though there are still occasional minor signs of age related wear and tear. There are also just a couple of "rough" looking spots that show up for no discernable reason (see screenshots 12 and 13 for two examples), though they tend to be pretty fleeting. I've scored this just a tad lower than the other two films in this set, but the differences on the whole are fairly marginal.

The Silence Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The Silence probably depends the most of all three films in this set on its soundtrack, and while the LPCM Mono track provided here gets the job done, I personally kept wondering what a stereo or even surround track might have added to a film that delights in "depicting" (aurally that is) the sounds heard by a blind boy. The film uses a lot of music, including everything from Beethoven's Fifth Symphony to what I assume are ethnic songs and/or instruments, and all of those elements are delivered with clarity and no problems whatsoever. Dialogue is also presented cleanly and clearly.

The Silence Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Arrow has packaged this release with the two "narrative" films on one disc, and the "documentary" on the other. Therefore, the discs may have supplementary material that is more generalist in nature or not specifically devoted to one particular film.

Disc One (Gabbeh and The Silence)

• Audio Commentary on Gabbeh by critic Godfrey Cheshire


• Original Trailers

  Gabbeh US Trailer (1080p; 1:19)

  Gabbeh French Trailer (1080p; 1:17)

  The Silence French Trailer (1080p; 1:02)



• Stills Gallery

  Gabbeh (1080p; 2:40)

  The Silence (1080p; 2:50)

Disc Two (The Gardener)

• Poetry in Motion: An Interview with Mohsen Makhmalbaf (1080p; 1:00:36) is a well done interview conducted by Jonathan Romney covering Makhmalbaf's career in general while also touching on these films.


• Mohsen with Closed Eyes (1080i; 16:34) is listed as "an imaginatively filmed archival interview with Makhmalbaf on The Silence", but while the content is definitely interesting, the "imaginatively filmed" part boils down to Makhmalbaf speaking with his eyes closed.


• Original Trailer (1080p; 4:21)


• Still Gallery (1080p; 3:50)

The Silence Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Much like Gabbeh, The Silence features at times inventive visuals (and in this case, "audials"), but it tends to wander a bit in its story department. This is another kind of magical realist look at a little corner of Tajikistan and it, like music itself, may have certain charms that will allow it to soothe otherwise curmudgeonly viewers. Video quality is probably the least pleasing of the three in this set, but still gets the job done, and the soundtrack, while in mono, is hugely enjoyable. Recommended.