Beyond Silence

Beyond Silence is built around a trio of fantastic turns from its actors.

Whether from a veteran, a well-known face in the Netherlands, or a complete newcomer, Marnie Blok draws perfect performances in this taut drama about a young deaf student seeking advice from an older advisor about sexual abuse in the workplace. Eva (Henrianne Jansen) arrives at the office with her sister, Anna (Sigrid ten Napel), as her sign language translator. She is there to ask Sandrine (Tamar van den Dop), an academic advisor, for guidance about sexual abuse she is suffering at the hands her PhD supervisor. Sandrine’s reticence to get involved, or encourage her speaking out, expose both a generational and ideological tension about “victimhood” and gaining justice for sexual crimes.

The sign language has another effect on the mood of the piece, beyond its symbolic meaning to the film’s message about finding a voice, it also adds a kinetic quality that serves the heighten the expression of pent-up anger. There is something about the physicality of someone articulating rage through sign language that adds an additional layer to the emotion – it is hard to dismiss fury as hysteria or melodrama when it is so expressively embodied. Of course, for Eva – and Jansen – this is just the natural manifestation of passion, but cinematically it adds an irresistible dynamism. This is aided by a truly exceptional first-ever performance from Henrianne Jansen, particularly in modulating her final, uncompromising monologue.

Despite being a dialogue-driven play between its characters, Beyond Silence uses a host of filmmaking techniques to emphasise its meaning-making. Myrthe Mosterman’s cinematography uses tight focus and intimate shots to close the space of the room – as tension rises the film feels claustrophobic and strained, like lungs bursting at a breath being held. It’s impressive that with relatively few wider shots to re-establish geography, the action never loses spatial coherence, so caught up are we in the various personal interplays.

Those subtleties allow for Blok to treat the knottiness of her subject with the complexities it deserves. Sandrine is an antagonist to Eva and Anna but also, as we come to understand, a protagonist in her own right, dealing with her own trauma in a different way. That said, Blok’s message with this film is clear, that we all must still do more – and do better – to support and create space for those who show the bravery to come forward about abuse, and to give them the safe spaces in which they can feel empowered to speak up.

Director, screenplay: Marnie Blok
Cast: Henrianne Jansen, Sigrid ten Napel, Tamar van den Dop
Producer: Ellen Havenith, Harald Swinkels
Cinematography: Myrthe Mosterman
Editing: Annelien van Wijnbergen
Music: Joris Oonk
Sound: Evelian van der Molen
Production companies: PRPL, Exosphere (Netherlands)
In Dutch, Sign languages
17 minutes

Read our coverage of more short films in our Verdict Shorts section.