Not a Word movie storyline. When Nina finds out that her teenage son Lars has been injured in an accident at school, she is faced with a dilemma: Can she leave behind the rehearsals with her orchestra in order to be there completely for him…in a situation that could be a life-changing moment?
The decision she makes is a compromise: for five days, she will leave Munich to take Lars on a getaway, to the island in western France where they usually spend their summer vacation – a place full of fond memories and significance to Lars. In winter, however, the island is no vacation paradise, but windy, dark and cold. In the small house on the beach, mother and son are forced to face each other.
Thoughts of music haunt Nina, the calls from the mainland worry her. Is she just sabotaging her career, which she has fought so hard for…and for what? Lars withdraws further every day. Misunderstandings multiply, suppositions turn into suspicions: Was Lars a witness to a gruesome crime at school? Did he even participate in it? When a winter storm cuts the last connection to the mainland, a dangerous confrontation ensues.
Film Review for Not a Word
Slovenian-born, Berlin-based writer-director Hanna Slak’s follow-up to her acclaimed drama The Miner [+] – chosen as the Slovenian entry for Best Foreign-language Film at the 90th Academy Awards – is titled Not a Word [+]. The family drama, which has screened in the Platform section of Toronto, delves into concealed trauma and the aftermath of violence.
In her most recent endeavour, Slak dissects modern family dynamics, in particular at a moment of crisis. Nina, a single parent, navigates the challenges of a demanding profession while raising a child who is entering adolescence. Meanwhile, Lars grapples with his parents’ separation, maintaining a bond with his father, and now having suffered this harrowing incident at school.
The tumultuous cocktail of Lars’s emotions threatens to combust, prompting Nina to momentarily set aside her projects – firstly, to recognise the depth of her son’s struggles, and secondly, to begin mending a rift that, while not uncommon during adolescence, has become particularly pronounced between them. Furthermore, Lars’s psyche has been deeply affected by a recent, unsettling incident in which a young girl from his school tragically perished in a dumpster fire.
The island they retreat to, enveloped in a bleak atmosphere, offers a landscape and some unpredictable weather that frame Nina and Lars’s familial journey through an unconventional, self-imposed form of psychotherapy. Slak keeps the emotional tension subtle, employing the weather as a conduit to reflect the characters’ inner sentiments.
Not a Word is a modern parent-child take on Wuthering Heights, with the landscape serving as a symbol of solace, liberation, confinement and decline. The weather mirrors the mental states of upheaval, latent anxiety, despair, trauma and redemption. This stormy natural backdrop, highlighting both the controllable and out-of-control aspects of human existence, is palpably captured by seasoned cinematographer Claire Mathon (Spencer, Portrait of a Lady on Fire).
Moreover, Mahler’s Symphony No 5 is woven in throughout the film, musically mirroring the pivotal mother-son relationship. Composer Amélie Legrand draws on Mahler’s symphonic transition from darkness to light in order to chart the evolution of Jona Levin Nicolai’s character. By referencing sections of Mahler’s work, from the Funeral March to Rondo-Finale, she taps into the expansive emotional canvas to underscore both the personal and shared challenges of Nina and Lars. Slak approaches this with a restrained tone, eschewing overt on-screen melodrama.
Centring on the nuances of single parenting and delving into the complexities of such a relationship, Not a Word seamlessly blends a chamber parental thriller with a trauma-driven coming-of-age tale and the social dimension of being a single parent. Slak’s introspective drama confronts a parent-child crisis, exacerbated by communication breakdowns. Employing a cyclical structure, the film grapples with the fallout while attempting to bridge the divide. The unspoken and implicit elements add important layers of tension. Equally haunting and hopeful, the movie reaffirms Slak’s prowess in rendering tempestuous emotional journeys on screen.
Not a Word (2024)
Kein Wort
Directed by: Hanna Antonina Wojcik Slak
Starring: Maren Eggert, Jona Levin Nicolai, Maryam Zaree,, Juliane Siebecke, Marko Mandic, Mehdi Nebbou, Gina Haller, Yura Yang, Michaela Allendorf, Antonia Sitak
Screenplay by: Hanna Antonina Wojcik Slak
Production Design by: Mélanie Dieter
Cinematography by: Claire Mathon
Film Editing by: Bettina Böhler
Music by: Amélie Legrand
MPAA Rating: None.
Distributed by: Grandfilm (Germany)
Release Date: July 4, 2024
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