Wondrous is the Silence of My Master, directed by Ivan Salatic, is a magnificently moody, sharp-minded and doom-laden vision of nineteenth-century Montenegrin freedom fighting and exile, which had its world premiere in the Tiger Competition of the Rotterdam International Film Festival. This atmospheric knockout unfolds in the painterly gloom of shadows and firelight, with the drums of death beating through it and paranoid dreams leaving omens hanging in the air. The Croatia-born, Montenegro-raised director’s sophomore feature follows his debut You Have the Night (2019), another elliptical portrait of decline, in which a shipyard is going bankrupt.
Wondrous is the Silence is framed by an introductory intertitle as a take on history that has been unearthed by chance, through cryptic and unclassifiable notes found by a fish vendor on the Adriatic coast in the paper he uses to wrap the daily catch. They were handwritten long ago by the servant of a tribal leader who resisted Turkish invaders from the hills of Montenegro, before taking refuge in Italy to treat his tuberculosis. These memories of uncertain statehood, and soul-searching questions of mortality and loyalty, unfold like a living oil painting that has been given a radical postmodern twist by bold and surprising imagery, and a playful refusal to lock down an objective interpretation of events. Veiling the narrative in obscurity, conflicting positions and the confused suspicions of unravelling minds and bodies, Salatic instead lets the internal crises and yearning for homeland of the small travelling party bleed into the sumptuous and spectral, unmoored frames of a striking film that should thrive in arthouse festival slots.
The rebel leader, bishop and poet Morlok (played with intensity and intelligence by Croatian contemporary poet Marko Pogaca), who is based on real nineteenth-century ruler Petar Petrovic Njegos, has been spearheading a vigorous defense of territory in the highlands of Montenegro by tribes who are isolated from any allies and perilously surrounded by Turkish forces. This is a brutal world in sway to warlord might, where the severed head of a slain Turk wrapped in bloody sacking is regarded as an apt currency for currying favour with their commander by fighters who have sworn allegiance to the struggle. But Morlok is beset by other fatal forces no army can hold off, and as his health is deteriorating due to terminal illness, he departs to sunnier European climes with his small household to seek a cure. Their silent voyage is set to a pounding soundscape that amplifies the dark, folkloric weight of Morlok’s journey as an existential one (Mediterranean hauntologists Mai Mai Mai have prominent place on the hugely effective soundtrack.) The figures in the wooden boat are framed against the sky in a manner that suggest a stripped-back, centuries-old masterwork, like so much of this evocative film as it interrogates the formation, undoing and reconstitution of national heroes and myths.
In the small band of travellers is Djuko (Luka Petrone), Morlok’s right-hand assistant and the author of the texts that eventually somehow reappeared as a record, with all the blind chance that determines our surviving knowledge of the world, at the fish market. As the party settles into a remote villa in the south of Italy, swapping the rugged and wind-battered beauty and mists of Montenegro’s hills for elegantly appointed repose, Djuko is gripped by an almost intolerable longing for his homeland that conflicts with his faithful sense of duty. His sense of displacement gnaws deeper into him as Morlok’s condition worsens and Djuko fears he may die in a foreign land. Djuko’s uncalm mind is further tormented by jealousy, as the poet forges an intellectual bond with a visiting scholar. Morlak’s status as a revered literary mind among his entourage, who are unable to read the books whose greatness they have only heard about, is a running thread in a film that ultimately questions how Montenegro’s identity ia framed and passed on, and who has been able to determine and interpret the words of the powerful and their deeds.
Director, Screenwriter: Ivan Salatic
Cinematographer: Ivan Markovic
Editing: Jelena Maksimovic
Cast: Marko Pogacar, Luka Petrone, Jakov Zovko, Vanja Matic, Vladimir Milosevic
Producers: Jelena Angelovski, Dusan Kasalica
Sound Design: Amaury Arboun
Music: Mai Mai Mai, Toni Cutrone
Production Design: Dragana Bacovic, Marija Mitic
Production company, Sales: Meander Film (Montenegro)
Venue: Rotterdam (Tiger Competition)
In Montenegrin, Italian, French
93 minutes
