Silent Souls (2011)
Average Rating: 7.7/10
Reviews Counted: 43
Fresh: 42 | Rotten: 1
No consensus yet.
Average Rating: 8.1/10
Critic Reviews: 12
Fresh: 12 | Rotten: 0
No consensus yet.
liked it
Average Rating: 3.7/5
User Ratings: 617
My Rating
Movie Info
When Miron's beloved wife Tanya passes away, he asks his best friend Aist to help him say goodbye to her according to the rituals of the Merja culture, an ancient Finno-Ugric tribe from Lake Nero, a picturesque region in West-Central Russia. Although the Merja people assimilated into Russians in the 17th century, their myths and traditions live on in their descendants' modern life. The two men set out on a road trip thousands of miles across the boundless land, with them, two small birds in a
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Cast
-
Igor Sergeyev
Aist -
Yuri Tsurilo
Miron -
Yuliya Aug
Tanya -
Ivan Tushin
Aist as a Child -
-
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All Critics (44) | Top Critics (12) | Fresh (42) | Rotten (1)
A meditation on death and sex, it's a melancholy and touchingly profound folk tale, though also deeply weird in places - pagan vajazzling, anyone?
Top CriticIt's lovely and slow and melancholic and short - 75 minutes, yet you feel you've been gone for an epoch or two.
An astonishing, haunting, sensual, lyrical, bleak and ultimately beautiful road-trip movie.
Rife with earthy details and poetic associations, the movie often advances like a daydream.
This profound and immensely touching film in only 75 perfect minutes achieves the profundity of an epic.
The Russian drama unfolds as a series of perplexing, fascinating snapshots, yet the predominant story about saying goodbye - to people and customs - are universal.
... slow and introspective, paced in long, still shots that seem to drift in time rather than march forward.
Overwhelms us with meaningful silence.
Shot in a series of long single takes in the remote reaches of a chilly landscape the film evokes how the acceptance of loss can bring a sense of peace.
Full of striking visual images and fragmentary half-truths - a dour meditation on love and death that arrests and alienates in equal measure.
The performances are pitch perfect. The culture is fascinating. See it. See it. See it.
Aleksei Fedorchenko's crisp, beautiful film ponders the oddness and necessity of the folk rites in which we all seek solace.
It is an odd, low-key film but the brief running time ensures that it never overstays its welcome.
Fedorchenko may not exactly be on oath with all of these Meryan traditions of his, but they create an utterly distinctive world, and the close harmony provided by a choir in one scene really is arresting.
A disarming tableau about life, love and death, Aleksei Fedorchenko's lyrical drama is soup for the soul.
The wheels within wheels of sly tale-spinning turn quietly, turn deep.
An incredibly moving and masterfully controlled experience.
A beautiful piece of work: heart-wrending, atmospheric and truly poignant. Recommended.
Beguiling, dreamy and mystifying. And quite unlike anything else. An unexpected cinematic treat.
There's nothing here Andrei Tarkovsky didn't achieve in his prime, but at a mere 78 minutes it maintains focus with admirable purity.
The finale may leave some unfulfilled, but this is an intuitive visual essay that begs to be experienced.
If Silent Souls is slow and cryptic, with long takes and mysterious metaphors, it achieves a great sense of poetic realism
Stunningly photographed for the wide screen SILENT SOULS is another indication that the Russian cinema, despite its problems, is still capable of producing major work.
A resonant, lyrical and beautifully realised cinematic experience.
Simple but not simplistic, Silent Souls resonates like a beautiful bell
Audience Reviews for Silent Souls
Super Reviewer
The original title in Russian refers to the birds "Yellowhammers".
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Foreign Titles
- Stille Seelen (DE)
- Silent Souls (Ovsyanki) (UK)
