A fascination with three historical eras and a centuries-old tree, a wry witness to the men and women who have come and gone.
Silent Friend
is a film, in theaters for
Movies Inspired
, by the Hungarian director
Ildikó Enyedi
, Golden Bear winner for
Body and Soul, one of the most seductive and acclaimed works at Venice 82, where it secured the FIPRESCI Prize, in addition to the Mastroianni Award for Luna Wedler. One of the film’s protagonists is set across three different eras, 1908, alongside the university’s first female student in its history who, through photography, uncovers the secret patterns of the universe hidden in every plant; 1972, with a boy who tends a geranium; and 2020, when a tree becomes the site of an experiment by a Hong Kong neuroscientist, played by Tony Leung. All the while the ancient tree, a ginkgo biloba planted in the University of Marburg’s botanical garden, stands as a silent, but omniscient, witness to what unfolds.
The plot is reductive for capturing fully the poetry and sensuality of Silent Friend, which is best experienced by letting it capture you. This is how the director, Ildikó Enyedi, explained the starting point to us.
“At the beginning of the Seventies, a philosophical essay by Thomas Nagel appeared. The title was: “What Is It Like to Be a Bat?” And in this essay he realizes that we do not know. But we cannot know, because we are too different. The important thing, however, is that, even though we don’t know what it is, that doesn’t mean that a bat, a plant or an insect doesn’t have a voice of their own. They do. And in some way this film also doesn’t want to say: ‘I know how a tree thinks, or what it feels, or what its words are’. The heroes of the film are human. They simply seek to recognize them as complex beings and try to catch a small clue, a glimpse of what trees are. They have secrets, and yet there is something. Not that, just because we don’t perceive it, there is nothing. I could have spoken of a minute blade of grass as well, but we humans become attached to subjects, to things, and so I thought that choosing a tree, with a very long life, a special and very solitary tree, in that botanical garden, might make it a little easier to establish a connection. And through the connection to the tree, to truly reflect on all the topics we touch on playfully here and there in the film.”
Three stories in three different historical periods, why?
The 1908 segment was heavily inspired by a photographer, Karl Blossfeldt, who would simply arrange the plainest plants in his studio, before a neutral backdrop, and shoot black-and-white photographs. They are jaw-dropping. You think: ‘What planet am I on? What wonderful creatures are these?’. Yet they are merely garden plants. They are truly wonderful. And this is what Greta discovers: these are sacred or eternal forms, while we see only grass. On one hand there’s the discovery of the structure of these plants, on the other the sensuality. I wanted to make a film that was very sensual, not so much narrative, but that spoke to the senses. And Greta, when she enters the garden, understands how full it is of complex, vivacious beings who fully enjoy life and have their own world. In the Seventies there was the first wave of these experiments in plant communication, quite naive: Baxter used truth machines, which were the first sensors for plants. It was also a period when everything was questioned, opening doors to various directions. I was an adolescent, and since then I’ve seen life become increasingly conservative. The lockdown of 2020 was a truly awful moment, and yet I’m glad I lived it because we experienced another form of peace, another way of living, in which this reality, which we consider objective and immutable, simply vanished.
In Silent Friend there are funny moments, very comedic, sometimes almost farcical
I’m so glad you noticed, because it’s a cruel humor and you can only hope it lands, but the fact that people say it’s wonderful means it has been received.
I believe it’s the first film with more plants in the end credits than humans.
We had a wonderful first assistant who was delighted to take on the task of examining every frame of the final cut, identifying every plant and finding both its Latin and English name.
What was it like working during the pandemic with a major Hong Kong actor like Tony Leung? Why did you choose him? He has acted in films very different from yours
It’s certainly a role different from many of his previous ones. For him it was a risk to come to Europe to act in a small authorial film, even though our budget here in Europe isn’t exactly low; for him it’s still a small production, and a very different role. I am immensely grateful to him for throwing himself wholeheartedly into this adventure without any reservation and for bringing an extraordinary presence to the set, so kind and attentive to the entire crew, really appreciating everyone’s work. He is a true gentleman, with a truly big spirit and a very wise and intelligent person, in addition to being a brilliant actor.
How did you find the tree, one of the film’s leads?
It wasn’t easy, because trees older than three hundred years aren’t found in Europe or elsewhere, except in China and Japan. There are six-hundred- and eight-hundred-year-old trees. Many years ago I shot a film with a six-hundred-year-old tree. But they were taken from a tiny corner of China and Japan when only a few remained, and, because they were so precious, they were planted next to castles and palaces, very close to buildings. That wasn’t feasible for us. So we conducted thorough research in Germany, France, the Netherlands and, in the end, we were very fortunate to find these three similar trees in Hungary. They are real characters and it wasn’t easy to recreate the same atmosphere across all three trees.
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