On a desolate island, a mother and son must deal with years of silence and misunderstandings in writer/director Hanna Antonina Wojcik Slak’s “Not A Word.” This bleak, atmospheric film tells the story of a detached familial relationship and the resentment that has built from a lack of nurturing and communication. It’s the type of film that provides more of an emotional experience rather than more conventional storytelling, which can make it a challenging watch for some viewers.
Conductor Nina (Maren Eggert) is preparing for a concert at the Berlin Philharmonic when she gets an urgent call from her son’s school. There’s been an accident, and teenager Lars (Jona Levin Nicolai) may or may not have been trying to injure himself on purpose. Concerned about her child, Nina quickly takes Lars and retreats to a remote island where the family used to spend their summers. The refuge is a lot different in winter, though, and the two arrive to find a cold, empty, and inhospitable place. Trapped in their cabin by an impending storm, Lars begins to display increasingly disturbing behavior that his mother finally has the time to notice. This feeds into Nina’s paranoia, as she fears her son may have been involved in the recent, horrific death of a classmate.
The characters are forced to face these serious issues head-on, and Slak adds an air of foreboding that lends a disquieting moodiness to her film. The story is ambiguous, but not in a lazy way. Every part of her script feels deliberate and important, even if she takes a prolonged time to tell the story.
This is the type of film that encourages your mind to wander to the deepest, darkest places. Is Lars just a moody teen or is there more buried deep beneath his exterior? Slak gievs just enough story at well-metered intervals to keep you engaged in the mystery, allowing viewers to draw their own conclusions. We see that Lars has a penchant for literally playing with fire and based on his behavior towards a young girl on the island, there’s a strong sense that there’s something seriously wrong with him. Lars is likely suicidal, depressed, angry, and mentally disturbed, and his busy mother is finally paying enough attention to him to see that. Once the two reach a deeper level of connection, however, Nina realizes that she is frightened by her own son.
We never really find out what happened in relation to Lars and Nina’s connection to the dead classmate, which in itself is frustratingly inconclusive. It’s all by design, but it makes the film all the more disturbing to picture various scenarios.
“Not A Word” takes its time to tell the story, using stunning landscapes (gorgeously shot by cinematographer Claire Mathon) as the inhospitable setting and classical standards as part of the soundtrack. There’s a lot to see here, and there’s a lot to feel as well.
By: Louisa Moore
Screen Zealots 