The Silent Twins: Directed by Agnieszka Smoczyńska

Agnieszka Smoczyńska’s English-language debut is a bold film, but one that lacks soul. It impresses with its sophisticated form and directorial vision, but fails to engage with the story.

Awarded the Golden Lions at the Gdynia Film Festival, Agnieszka Smoczyńska’s work had already been mentioned as one of the favourites of the main competition before the start of the event. It is not without reason – one of the most interesting auteurs in Polish cinema of the last decade, made her English-language debut, cast Letitia Wright in one of the leading roles, and the premiere of The Silent Twins took place during the Cannes Film Festival, still the most prestigious film event in the world.

Still, The Silent Twins leaves an impression of dissatisfaction and artistic discontent. Telling the story of twins who one day decide to fall silent, thus cutting themselves off from the outside world, Smoczyńska builds an impressive façade, behind which it is difficult to discern deeper meanings and senses. On the surface, everything in The Silent Twins is in its right place – expressive form, style, staging, great cinematography, set design, music. And yet, it is, to quote Mickiewicz, a ‘beautiful church, but without God inside’.

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Silent Twins (2022) oficjalny zwiastun, w kinach od 21 października

The story of twins raised in 1970s Wales seduces with an aura of mystery, but it doesn’t allow you to get close to the characters or the story’s deep meaning. The Silent Twins portrays race, rejection, difference and the inability to communicate with the world, but none of these themes are allowed to fully resonate. The formal grandeur overshadows the content and makes Smoczyńska’s film a showy blowout – a picture that promises more than it is able to deliver.

The Silent Twins remains at the same time proof of the artistry and craftsmanship of the director and her collaborators. Jakub Kijowski, for example, who once again stepped behind the camera to create a visually coherent, expressive and stylistically blunt world on screen. Together with Jagna Dobesz, awarded Best Production Design at the Gdynia Film Festival, he has created a picture that narrates the emotional experiences of the heroines through colours, textures and well-chosen perspectives.

The Silent Twins, dir. Agnieszka Smoczyńska [gallery]

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The Silent Twins is a visual masterpiece: striking, but devoid of flashiness, highly functional visually and yet, unmistakable in its visual individuality. In the story of the silent sisters, the medium itself speaks – the cinematography, the superb animation and the excellent music by Zuzanna Wrońska and Marcin Macuk. For Smoczyńska has a very clear vision of the style of the story and creates an aesthetic marvel on screen.

The director returns to her favourite motifs: as in The Lure, she talks about a sisterly pact against the world, reaches for the motif of erotic initiation and violence, which was already present in her student etude 3 Love, recalls the theme of addictive fascination, which she touched upon in Aria Diva, and again – as in the recent Fugue – delves into the depths of the protagonists’ disturbed psyche. The Silent Twins brings all these themes, motifs and topics together, proving that Smoczyńska’s involvement in this project was not for a moment a conjunctural choice.

And yet The Silent Twins does not really move the viewer. It is impossible to get close to the heroines, impossible to empathise with them. Watching the story of the twins, one gets the impression of participating in an aesthetically sophisticated but tabloid-like tale of two quirky girls: a little menacing, very mysterious, but completely incomprehensible. And although the film’s cinematic form amazes, and the festival laurels might suggest that it is the undersigned who cannot properly appreciate Smoczyńska’s film, contrary to festival incantations and environmental wannabes, The Silent Twins unfortunately fails to delight. To be more precise, it both delights and leaves one indifferent.

Translated by: P.G.

The Silent Twins.

Directed by: Agnieszka Smoczyńska.

Screenplay: Andrea Seigel.

Cinematography: Jakub Kijowski.

Production design: Jagna Dobesz.

Music: Zuzanna Wronska, Marcin Macuk.

Starring: Letitia Wright, Tamara Lawrance.

Premiere: 21.10.2022.