19/02/2024 - BERLINALE 2024: Dāvis Sīmanis’s film is rich in historical references and complex visual poeticism, yet it’s one of his most classical fictions to date

A year ago, Dāvis Sīmanis disclosed to the Latvian national public broadcaster that this was an unfilmable film – but they would try. The result is Maria’s Silence [+see also:
interview: Dāvis Sīmanis
film profile], one of the most linear and uncomplicated examples of storytelling in Sīmanis’s recent creative filmography. Unlike his previous movies (Exiled [+see also:
trailer
film profile] and The Year Before the War [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Dāvis Sīmanis
film profile]), Sīmanis's latest opus, screening in the Berlinale Forum, adopts a more conventional structure to tell a story of great intensity – that offered by Marija Leiko’s biography and the historical era it unfolded in.

Maria’s Silence, penned by the director together with Magali Negroni and Tabita Rudzāte, depicts the last two years in Leiko’s (1887-1938) life. She was a Latvian theatre and cinema actress who rose to stardom in Germany during the silent-movie era. Formerly a believer in socialistic ideals, Leiko stays in Stalin’s Russia and reluctantly agrees to join Moscow’s Latvian theatre troupe called “Skatuve” (which translates as “Stage”). She quickly realises the sinister nature of totalitarianism and its horrifying grip on the individual.

The film is rather demanding, expecting the spectator to be well versed in history, culture and visual literacy. The referenced personas include prominent Latvian theatre director Asja Lācis (a fierce performance by Inese Kučinska) and the founder of Skatuve, Osvalds Glāznieks (Vilis Daudziņš, who never disappoints). However, the Skatuve troupe primarily has a collective identity. None of the personalities truly stand out, which is a shame, considering the magnitude of their tragedy – although it’s understandable that in such an intense story, you may have to kill your darlings.

The kaleidoscope of traitors, informers and NKVD officers encapsulates the cowardice and the evil of the regime’s puppets. The actors shine in their respective roles. Take, for example, the scene where Artūrs Skrastiņš’s character, Jēkabs Peterss (one of the founders of Cheka), franticly drinks and then trembles as he reveals his betrayal of Leiko.

The literary references are crucial, adding a thick symbolic layer. It’s like the film was written by Alberts Bels. Through Latvian poet Rainis’s writing, the Skatuve actors ask rhetorical questions about the light battling the darkness. Both Rainis and communism believed in the future individual – and the outcome is known to Rainis’s biographers and ex-Soviet Bloc citizens. Yet the most on-point literary analogy is Leiko’s last theatre role: Kristīne (the quintessential Latvian drama heroine from writer Rūdolfs Blaumanis’ works Ugunī/In Fire and Purva bridējs/The Swamp Wader). Indeed, the Leiko-Kristīne pairing draws parallels between two strong women choosing their own, doomed fate.

The choice to cast relatively inactive Latvian actress Olga Šepicka in the lead role seems like a meticulously considered decision to revive both Leiko and Šepicka. Her Leiko is dignified and enigmatic: laconic in her speech and stately in her stance. Šepicka’s performance progressively culminates in a wrenchingly tactile portrayal of a ruined individual.

Once again, Sīmanis works with a long-standing creative collaborator, DoP Andrejs Rudzāts. The elegant, monochrome cinematography betrays a keen eye for detail and precision, existing as a powerful visual metaphor for both the gruesomeness of Stalin’s Great Purge and the heavy air of Moscow. The black-and-white picture is also an homage to German expressionism, which defined Leiko’s career.

The ambitious historical recreation is down to production designer Kristīne Jurjāne. From the menacing proportions of Stalin's portrait to the lavish details and textures featured in the dining scene, everything feels thoughtfully put in place. Nevertheless, while the use of naked waitresses might echo Satan’s ball in The Master and Margarita, illustrating the decadence and the hypocrisy of the Soviet moral police, it feels a tad too much.

Maria’s Silence is a beautiful and highly artistic take on the occupation and the regime behind it. Even nowadays, an FSB officer can walk into your theatre and crush it: Russia’s and the USSR’s crimes still go unnoticed in Western Europe, thus making Berlin the perfect spot for the premiere.

Maria’s Silence is a co-production between Latvia’s Mistrus Media and Lithuania’s Broom Films.