Silent Souls

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75%

Audience Score

User Ratings: 766

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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 cage. Along the way, as is custom for the Merjans, Miron shares intimate memories of his conjugal life. But as they reach the banks of the sacred lake where they will forever part with the body, he realizes he wasn't the only one in love with Tanya... -- (C) Shadow Distribution

Rating:

NR
Genre:

Art House & International, Drama
Directed By:

Aleksei Fedorchenko
Written By:

Denis Osokin
In Theaters:

Sep 16, 2011 limited
On Disc/Streaming:

Feb 25, 2013
Runtime:

75 minutes
Studio:

Shadow Distribution

Cast

Igor Sergeev
as Aist

Yuriy Tsurilo
as Miron

Yuliya Aug
as Tanya

Igor Sergeyev
as Aist

Yuri Tsurilo
as Miron

Ivan Tushin
as Aist as a Child

Viktor Sukhorukov
as Vesa

Larisa Damaskina
as Zoya

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News & Interviews for Silent Souls

Digital Multiplex: Zero Dark Thirty and Les Misérables

Digital Multiplex: The Master, The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2, and More

Critics Consensus: Drive is Certified Fresh

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Critic Reviews for Silent Souls

All Critics (47) | Top Critics (18) | Fresh (45) | Rotten (2)

Aleksei Fedorchenko's crisp, beautiful film ponders the oddness and necessity of the folk rites in which we all seek solace.

Jun 22, 2012 | Rating: 4/5 | Full Review…

Robbie Collin
Daily Telegraph (UK)
Top Critic
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.

Jun 21, 2012 | Rating: 4/5 | Full Review…

Peter Bradshaw
Guardian
Top Critic
The wheels within wheels of sly tale-spinning turn quietly, turn deep.

Jun 21, 2012 | Rating: 4/5 | Full Review…

Nigel Andrews
Financial Times
Top Critic
An incredibly moving and masterfully controlled experience.

Jun 21, 2012 | Rating: 4/5

Laurence Boyce
Little White Lies
Top Critic
A meditation on death and sex, it's a melancholy and touchingly profound folk tale, though also deeply weird in places - pagan vajazzling, anyone?

Jun 19, 2012 | Rating: 4/5 | Full Review…

Cath Clarke
Time Out
Top Critic
If Silent Souls is slow and cryptic, with long takes and mysterious metaphors, it achieves a great sense of poetic realism

May 16, 2012 | Rating: 4/5 | Full Review…

Paul Byrnes
Sydney Morning Herald
Top Critic
It is a film worth revisiting, like a dream after waking, but an hour later you may not remember you ever had the dream at all.

Aug 5, 2019 | Rating: 2.5/4 | Full Review…

Matthew Lucas
From the Front Row
Grief is handled here in a such a restrained and unusual way that is rarely seen in cinema.

Aug 27, 2018 | Rating: 4/5 | Full Review…

Isabel Stevens
ViewLondon
[Silent Souls] is whimsical, melancholy and utterly beautiful.

Jan 9, 2018 | Full Review…

Stuart Klawans
The Nation
... slow and introspective, paced in long, still shots that seem to drift in time rather than march forward.

Mar 23, 2013 | Full Review…

Sean Axmaker
Turner Classic Movies Online
Overwhelms us with meaningful silence.

Feb 14, 2013 | Rating: A- | Full Review…

Dennis Schwartz
Ozus' World Movie Reviews
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.

Jun 30, 2012 | Rating: 3/5 | Full Review…

Jim Schembri
3AW

View All Critic Reviews (47)

Audience Reviews for Silent Souls

Apr 17, 2014

In "Silent Souls," Aist(Igor Sergeev) is the son of a famous poet. Having failed to write anything of his own, Aist works in a paper factory. While making time with a female security guard, he is called to the office of Miron(Yuriy Tsurilo), his boss. It's not about that, however. See, Miron's younger wife Tanya(Yuliya Aug) has just died and he needs help in attending to the appropriate funeral rites. Since this might take a few days, Aist, takes along the birds, buntings, that he just bought. "Silent Souls" is a rather beguiling movie. If it is oddly so, it is perhaps the way an outsider, or the viewer, sees the customs shown which are fading away in this modern world.(The scene in the box store exemplifies this clash of worlds.) In any case, the narration is definitely necessary, as else we might come to a thoroughly different conclusion as to what is really happening.(Like for instance, that Miron murdered the unhappy Tanya which I am not entirely ruling out.) We see all of this mostly over the characters' shoulders which does make it kind of hard to focus on them at times while the movie's deliberate pace does wonders in establishing a keen sense of loneliness. Even with the funereal mood, I am wondering how seriously to take the movie at times, considering the awful poetry, not as bad as Vogon poetry, mind you, but still bad, which is pretty ridiculous.

Walter M Super Reviewer
Jun 03, 2012

'Silent Souls'. Long, patient takes, meticulous direction, stunning imagery, and a strange old tale of holding onto the past.

c0up Super Reviewer
Sep 03, 2011

Haunting Russian drama about 2 men bound by the same woman, on a journey to give her a proper burial. Nods to Tarkovsky, lost hopes, and faded dreams converge in this eerily effective study on grief. Weak ending aside, it feels remarkably lived in - a melancholy testament to humanity's quest for immortality.

Matthew L Super Reviewer