Silent Souls
Encyclopedia
Silent Souls is a 2010 Russian film that was nominated for the Golden Lion
Golden Lion
Il Leone d’Oro is the highest prize given to a film at the Venice Film Festival. The prize was introduced in 1949 by the organizing committee and is now regarded as one of the film industry's most distinguished prizes...

 at the 67th Venice Film Festival. It is based on a 2008 novella by Denis Osokin. The film was awarded the Golden Osella
Golden Osella
The Golden Osella is the name of several awards given at the Venice Film Festival. They are awarded irregularly and in various categories such as directing, screenwriting, cinematography and 'technical contributions'.-Best Director:...

 for best cinematography and a FIPRESCI
FIPRESCI
The International Federation of Film Critics is an association of national organizations of professional film critics and film journalists from around the world for "the promotion and development of film culture and for the safeguarding of professional interests." It was founded in June 1930 in...

 award. It was considered a frontrunner for the Golden Lion, but a jury led by Quentin Tarantino
Quentin Tarantino
Quentin Jerome Tarantino is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, cinematographer and actor. In the early 1990s, he began his career as an independent filmmaker with films employing nonlinear storylines and the aestheticization of violence...

 presented the award to his ex-girlfriend Sofia Coppola
Sofia Coppola
Sofia Carmina Coppola is an American screenwriter, film director, actress, and producer.In 2003 she received the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for Lost in Translation, and became the third woman to be nominated for an Academy Award for Directing...

.

Plot

Aist is a middle-aged bachelor who leads a lonely life in the northern town of Neya
Neya
Neya is a town in Kostroma Oblast, Russia, located on the right bank of the Neya River , northeast of Kostroma. Population: 14,400 .The settlement of Neya was founded in 1906 and granted town status in 1958....

. Like many of his neighbours, he identifes himself as a Meryan and strives to keep alive the ancient traditions of his people. (In reality, the Finnic tribe of Merya was assimilated by the Russians at some point in the Middle Ages). One day his boss Miron informs him about the death of his wife Tanya. The two men take her body to Gorbatov (the smallest town in Russia) in order to perform cremation rites on the bank of the Oka River
Oka River
Oka is a river in central Russia, the largest right tributary of the Volga. It flows through the regions of Oryol, Tula, Kaluga, Moscow, Ryazan, Vladimir, and Nizhny Novgorod and is navigable over a large part of its total length, as far upstream as to the town of Kaluga. Its length exceeds...

. On their way back to Neya they are attacked by yellowhammer
Yellowhammer
The Yellowhammer, Emberiza citrinella, is a passerine bird in the bunting family Emberizidae. It is common in all sorts of open areas with some scrub or trees and form small flocks in winter....

s and die in a car crash on the Kineshma Bridge
Kineshma Bridge
Kineshemsky Bridge is a bridge across the Volga River. It is located in Ivanovo Oblast, near Kineshma and Zavolzhsk. It is a part of Highway Kineshma-Kostroma....

 while crossing "the great Meryan river" (i.e., the Volga).

Reception

Silent Souls received considerable praise from film critics. The official Rossiyskaya Gazeta
Rossiyskaya Gazeta
Rossiyskaya Gazeta is a Russian government daily newspaper of record which publishes the official decrees, statements and documents of state bodies...

compared the film to Tarkovsky
Andrei Tarkovsky
Andrei Arsenyevich Tarkovsky was a Soviet and Russian filmmaker, writer, film editor, film theorist, theatre and opera director, widely regarded as one of the finest filmmakers of the 20th century....

's best work as a powerful evocation of pre-Christian roots of rural Russia. Andrei Plakhov
Andrei Plakhov
Andrei Stepanovich Plakhov is a Russian film critic and historian of cinema, columnist for Kommersant newspaper. President of the International Federation of Film Critics....

 praised the film as "a metaphor
Metaphor
A metaphor is a literary figure of speech that uses an image, story or tangible thing to represent a less tangible thing or some intangible quality or idea; e.g., "Her eyes were glistening jewels." Metaphor may also be used for any rhetorical figures of speech that achieve their effects via...

 for the lost (and probably mythical) world that was crushed by the moloch of industrialisation".

Among American critics, Jim Hoberman wrote: "Dour yet affirmative, this laconic, deliberately paced, beautifully shot movie seeks the archaic in the ordinary". Jeannette Catsoulis of The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...

commented: "Populated by memories and dappled with desire, “Silent Souls” is part folk tale, part lesson in letting go. In its quiet acceptance of the passing of time, this unusual film reminds us that to die is not always the same as to disappear".
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