I was very happy to see Ildikó Enyedi’s “Silent Friend” recently at the Aero, and actually had not been aware that she had been scheduled to do a Q&A when I bought the ticket. So, walking up to the theater, I had a burst of joy when I saw her name on the marquee.
The film was great, but one particular point Enyedi made in the discussion that followed really stuck with me. When a person is living in a system which she or her feels is — I think this is how she put it — “not very nice,” then one has, she said at first, two choices. A person can choose to conform to the system despite misgivings. A second possibility is to fight the system directly.
After what I felt to be a pause, she said that there was also a third option. One can simply live and act in a way that is true to oneself regardless of the broader systemic context. Very significantly, she did not say to ignore the system, but rather that a person can choose not to let the system define one’s being. This doesn’t mean everything is okay and often people who choose this third option get hurt just the same as those who fight directly or indeed those conform. But there is an integrity in it, and that’s valuable. For me right now, her point was good to hear.
The film itself was fantastic, and especially heartening to see because it’s completely idiosyncratic. Nothing makes me happier than seeing any kind of artist follow her or his own instincts along a unique path. I have a pet theory that everyone has unique art, broadly defined, to bring to the world, if only the person can connect to her or his own uniqueness. Enyedi has certainly done this.
Concretely, the film centers around a ginkgo tree in a German botanical garden, with three diffuse narratives of people in different times — shot, effectively, with different film stock — revolving around the tree. At some basic level the film is about the plant, or plants, as there’s a geranium that can be considered a significant though minor character, much like “Star Wars” is actually about two droids rather than people. Again, Enyedi has connected to that uniqueness that every person brings to this world: I truly would not have thought to make a tree the main character of anything, but she did, and I’m better off because she did.
Go see the film in a theater if possible. Always, films in theaters. Books and records at home, films in theaters.