Silence. The Stigmatised

On a bleak Easter morning a boy, Simon, inadvertently causes a car crash, which kills the parents of a girl, Magda. Many years later, they meet again in a nightclub. She is now a successful, aggressive businesswoman and single mother; he is a train engineer. Initially, she is intrigued by this ordinary-looking man, who seems to know so much about her. Then, as she gets drawn deeper into his world, she is both shocked and intrigued by her very strange guardian angel.

The first part of an eight part series - The Stigmatised - by writer Krzysztof Piesiewicz, Silence could by compared to the films of Kieslowski, with whom Piesiewicz collaborated on a number of occasions. In particular, we see the duality of the main character of Magda: hardline loner and doting mother in one. Her meeting with Simon forces her to reopen the locked doors of her past and reassess her life. Yet this is no idyllic romance. The silence of the title could equally well apply to Magda, whose make-up emphasises the hollow look in her eyes, or Simon, whose obsession marks him out as a stalker, rather than a friend.

This is a fine film, well acted and the ever-changing complex relationship between the characters is cleverly played out. It's just a shame that it feels flat overall, with a shift in emphasis in the final third, which neither resolves, nor complicates the story.

In a sense, the film has the feeling of John Sayles's Limbo, even down to the motif of reading from a diary, being used to express feelings, where they cannot be spoken in conversation, but stripped of some of the drama.

Perhaps, it will fit into part of a greater canon, as a tribute to Kieslowski's effect on European cinema.