In Silence

Do you think that the topic of Judaism in Music cannot appeal to you? The opposite is true. Zdeněk Jiráský's team found a new way to tell, to address, and to revive human stories decided on by a seemingly banal list. It would be futile to enumerate the individual pros. The only thing worth doing is to applaud the screen. (11.05.2015)

After the great Flower Buds, the degree of disappointment is almost palpable. The film has no plot and is just a series of scenes from concentration and labor camps, preceded by overexposed and naively-warm scenes from before the war, when everyone was happy and smiling and everything was optimistic and cheerful. There are about half a dozen Jews whose destinies we follow, but they have almost no exposition (it doesn't really suffice to slap a headline with a name and job description next to them) and the film alienates them by the fact that none of them say anything the entire time – except for shouting and singing, all of the dialogues and monologues take place exclusively through voiceovers. Just as a lexicon of Jewish artists is being printed at the beginning, Zdeněk Jiráský presents in his film a lexicon of all possible suffering that people have gone through in concentration camps, but he does so incredibly cheaply (there really is everything possible in the film, including a hangman, crying girls, the murder of a newborn, sad dog eyes...). In his persistent effort to squeeze a tear from the viewer, he fails on all fronts. (07.07.2014)