Where to Watch:
8.5/10
FilmFascination Rating
You would have to be very strong hearted to watch this movie. And even more strong hearted to digest the fact that this was all adapted from a true story.
I am utterly moved by this movie and am shaking right now even while writing this. Some movies just had to be made. Things would have been different if they did not exist. This is one of them. That is the level of impact this movie has had. There have been legislative changes since the release of this movie. Can you imagine that?
The movie starts with a typical noir atmosphere where Kang In-ho goes through the fog of the hypothetical city Mujin where the scene cuts back and forth with a small boy walking through the train tracks through a dark tunnel. Kang is joining as a new art teacher in Mujin at the Ja-ae school for the hearing impaired. As he joins the school, he is immediately asked to pay a whopping amount as the ‘school investment fund’ if he wants to get the job. The students don’t respond to him, and he notices some harsh treatment from the faculty towards these disabled children. Each suspicion leads to another until he catches the ‘after-school instructor’ dunking a school girl’s head in a washing machine. When he learns the fact that the very headmaster who inducted him has sexually abused some of these children, he is truly shaken (and so are you with the extreme graphic scenes they have shown). The scenes are so shocking and hard to watch that I had to cover my eyes to stop the trauma it was causing. It is utterly bone-chilling.
From the movie’s perspective, the atmosphere always feels chilling and scary. The faint-hearted really won’t be able to bear the graphic scenes. But somehow, I feel that showing all these unsettling scenes is the ultimate point. The scary lighting, the long corridors, the screams of the children from that one far away room – all this pulls us into the film. In the second half, the movie shifts its tone into a courtroom drama from the eerie atmosphere it gives in the first half. I was not sure if this movie deserved to be in the ‘Great Movies’ list. But like ‘Better Days’ the emotional ride that this movie made me go through made me ignore the analytical thoughts of my brain. Scenes like the one where Kang stands outside the headmaster’s office with a potted plant brought as a gift for him while he hears a boy’s cries from inside who is being thrashed by a teacher are one of the turning points for the viewers and the protagonist where both of us can no longer take the unjust.
Beside the great acting by the main actors, this film belongs to the child actors. They were beyond expectations. The pain, and finally hope they get when someone stands by their side, the mixed emotions when things go down and all that without any words. That is pure acting. Those emotions they portray through mere sign language are truly felt.
Silenced quite literally broke the silence among the civilians. Just two months after its release, the Gwang Ju Inhwa school, based on which the movie was made, was shut down. The people under trial were given the punishments they deserved and even the law that saved them in 2005 was removed. That is the greatest accomplishment a movie could achieve. Changing the world by its presence.
There is this article I read about Silenced which I would love to quote – ‘Were Silenced not based on fact, its unchecked depiction of corporal and sexual abuse in a Korean school for the deaf could be construed as sensational, manipulative, even sadistic.’ This does not even need any explanation. And it is absolutely heartbreaking to see that some of the children had to go through such horrible situations. I am just surprised that I haven’t heard anyone talk about this film before. That is the main reason I want to put it out there. It deserves to be watched.
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