Stalin’s ruthless campaign in the 30’s against the Latvians remains an unhealed wound, and it rings with wide relevance today in the threatening context of another Russian dictator who throws his enemies into prison, from where they may never emerge alive. Perhaps for that reason Maria’s Silence (Marijas klusums), set in pre-war Moscow, seems particularly timely. It is premiering in Berlin’s Forum, which should be a jumping-off spot to find wider audiences.
Latvian director Davis Simanis, whose highly stylized The Year Before the War (2021) was an exuberant tragicomic spin through the madness of pre-WW1 Europe, changes to a calmer, more realistic register here to tell the true story of silent movie and theater actress Maria Leiko, whose brief career on the Moscow stage ended when she was caught up in Stalin’s terror. Giving new life to a classic story of heroism under pressure is a commanding and multi-faceted performance by Olga Sepicka-Slapjuma as the Latvian diva, along with the highly pleasing visual style of black and white cinematography, whose refinement mimics films of the period.
Simanis boldly declares his allegiance to cinematic elegance in an extraordinary opening tracking shot from a moving train. It begins on the passing countryside of Latvia before the camera zooms back into a crowded first-class restaurant car, where Latvian military brass socialize with each other and the female passengers. One of these is Maria Leiko, a mesmerizing, now retired actress who is pushing 50. She is soon recognized as “our diva” by a tipsy officer who has seen her in a film by F.W. Murnau (that would be Satan, 1920). Though the atmosphere is gay and flirtatious, another woman who has overdone the champagne accuses everyone of pretending: in reality, they’re all scared, because they are approaching the USSR border. Maria goes to her private wagon-lit and throws up.
As it turns out, she is on her way to Moscow to see her daughter Nora who is about to have a baby. But when she arrives in the gloomy, empty hospital, an embarrassed doctor tells her Nora has died in childbirth and her baby is in an orphanage. When she insists on claiming the child, an infant girl is produced and Maria accepts it as her granddaughter, though the viewer may have some doubts.
Structured as a rise and fall, the story is divided into two parts. In the first, Maria is warmly welcomed by the authorities as good propaganda: she is a foreign celebrity who has chosen to live in the Soviet Union. She is introduced to swinging 1937 Moscow, with its wild parties decorated with naked women draped over tables full of food and its gallant officers, drunken ministers and secret police. It coincides with Maria’s return to the stage at the city’s Latvian theater, starring in a modernist play that the public adores. Rehearsals for the play (which tend to drag on too long) introduce us to the fascinating historical figure of Asja Lacis, a famous Bolshevik actress and theater director, played here with revolutionary verve by Inese Kucinska Lauksteine.
Though Maria never meets Stalin, she has a brush with the mad-dog head of the NKVD (the precursor of the KGB) that should give her pause, but doesn’t. Her flirtation with her well-meaning protector Jekabs Peterss (Arturs Skrastins), a Latvian revolutionary and founder of the secret police (an interesting role that Arturs Skrastins handles with great nuance), flowers into a brief affair. Or does she prefer her granddaughter’s pretty nanny Mila?
The masks come off and the knives come out in the second part of the film, when the fairy tale crumbles after Maria’s modernist play fails to impress the NKVD. There are arrests at the theater on trumped-up charges of being counter-revolutionaries and spies, which Maria at first avoids. But Peterss is losing power fast and she soon finds herself and her granddaughter are hostages of the Soviet Union.
Edited with the pace of a spy thriller, this engrossing story comes to an end in final sequences that are hard to watch. Bereft of her furs and fine clothes, Sepicka-Slapjuma plays this new role with courageous realism. She is filmed like an older Garbo without any makeup on to hide her bruises. As in life, there is no upbeat ending, though Simanis’s portrait of Maria Leiko is rounded out with a portrait in courage that impresses.
Painting the harsh realities of the time with a fascinating veneer is Andrejs Rudzats’ hypnotic black and white cinematography of icy, snow-laden city streets at night, lit tenuously by street lamps and eerily empty except for passing black vans marked “BREAD” — in reality, secret police wagons taking their victims to arrest, deportation, execution. Interiors are filmed with a sharp 1930’s crispness, while the camera pans dreamily past the mirrors and luxury of Kristine Jurjane’s sets.
Director: Davis Simanis
Screenwriters: Davis Simanis, Magali Negroni, Tabita RudzateProducers: Gints Grube, Inese Boka-Grube
Cast: Olga Sepicka-Slapjuma, Arturs Skrastins, Vilis Daudzins, Inese Kucinska, Girts Kesteris
Cinematography: Andrejs Rudzats
Production design: Kristine Jurjane
Costume design: Kristina Jurjane, Ruta Kupla, Aija Strazdina
Editing: Ieva Veiveryte
Music: Paulius Kilbauskas, Justinas Staros
Sound: Jonas Maksvytis
Production company: Mistrus Media (Latvia) in coproduction with Broom Films (Vilnius)
Venue: Berlin Film Festival (Forum)
In Latvian, Russian, German
104 minutes
