
Conductor Nina Palcek (Maren Eggert) is deep in rehearsals, fine tuning the orchestra for a monumental concert at the Berlin Philharmonic that’s just ten days away. Parenting offers no such chances to practice and Hanna Slak pulls on that thematic thread for her compelling and efficiently moody thriller Not A Word (Kein Wort). With little time for her son, Lars (Jona Levin Nicolai), who slinks around, sullen and withdrawn, Nina’s emotional absence turns to simmering guilt and paranoia that threatens to incinerate her life when she suspects there might be something more sinister behind his hormonal behavior.
The constant buzzing and ringing of Nina’s phone is the only sound in the otherwise antiseptic apartment she shares with Lars. Confining himself to his room, he might as well be on another planet. But he comes flying back into her orbit when he suffers a concussion following a mysterious accident — or was it? — at school. The incident forces Nina to confront some troubling information she’s been actively ignoring: the recent murder of Lars’ classmate; the curious appearance of a pair of floral patterned socks in his room; her son’s obsession with fire and fixing things. Eager to help him convalescence and get some answers, she whisks him away to Locmaria in Brittany, their regular vacation spot. But what’s usually sunny and busy in the summer is desolate and lonely in the dead of winter, and the foreboding atmosphere only intensifies the fissure Nina wants to bridge with Lars.
Unfolding somewhere between psychological suspense and slow-burn chamber drama, Slak keeps an enigmatic air behind Lars’ intensely burning anger and frightening outbursts. The film succeeds in keeping the audience just as off balance and uncertain as Nina. She’s continually trying to find solid ground in her gentle probing as Lars’ elusive responses often bring her inches closer to the truth and yards away all at the time. Their spiky tête-à-têtes — Eggert and Nicolai finding an easy rhythm in their dysfunction — are the core of Not A Word, which makes the appearance of Gwen (Juliane Seibecke), a young girl with Down’s Syndrome, all the more distracting. The character is an ill-advised and manipulative device, an innocent sheep led into the potential crosshairs of Lars’ wolfish and unpredictable rage that feels like a cheap ploy to ratchet up Nina’s anxiety about her son.
While they couldn’t be more different, comparisons are bound to be drawn between Not A Word and Todd Field’s Tár. Both films are about female composers leading the Berlin Philharmonic, each readying a performance of Mahler’s “Symphony No. 5.” However, where Field’s film merges the challenges of performing the piece with Lydia Tár’s personal journey, Slak sidesteps it. The filmmaker doesn’t particularly consider the ramifications of the rarified classical music world, its mercurial works and personalities, and their impact impact on Nina’s role as a mother or on her separation from Lars’ father. There’s no mistaking the job is demanding, but we’re left in the dark about how Nina’s journey — a rare one, as a woman and conductor — have shaped her as a person.
Just when it seems Not A Word will remain out of grasp, keeping its secrets close to the chest, its series of escalating events elegantly find a resolution, with Nina and Lars, at last, on an even keel where honesty can finally be tabled. The tension fades, but in its place is a troubling view about the assumptions we make about children, and the questions parents ask of them instead of about the substance of their own role in their lives. As Nina takes the podium, baton at the ready, with Lars watching proudly in the audience, they’ve reached an understanding. But as Slak knows, one wave of the hand could once again change everything.
Director: Hanna Slak
Screenplay: Hanna Slak
Cast: Maren Eggert, Jona Levin Nicolai, Maryam Zaree, Mehdi Nebbou, Marko Mandi
Producers: Michel Balagué
Cinematography: Claire Mathon
Production design: K.D. Gruber
Editing: Bettina Böhler
Music: Amélie Legrand
Sound: Martin Steyer, Grega Švabi, Noemi Hampel, Gábor Ripli
Production companies: VOLTE (Germany), Ici et Là Productions (France), Tramal Films (Slovenia)
World sales: Beta Cinema
Venue: Toronto International Film Festival (Platform)
In German, French
87 minutes