Dutch director Marnie Blok cathartically delves into her own experience of a sexual assault in her youth. She chooses direct that anger at women of her age and older because she believes that they have a propensity to downplay #MeToo. She sets her film in an academic environment, detailing the experiences of a young PhD student at the hands of a predatory professor. A premise shared Eva Victor’s understated indie Sorry, Baby and Luca Guadagnino’s After the Hunt, both released just last year.
A taut, sombre 17-minute chamber piece, set in one location, the short rests solely on the shoulders of its three actors in order to dramatise a fluctuating, emotional overwrought interaction. Deaf student Eva (Henrianne Jansen) arranges a meeting her dean Sandrine (Tamar Van Den Pop), bringing along her sister and interpreter Anna (Sigrid ten Napel). What Sandrine assumes is a casual catch-up, instead becomes the report of sexual assault. The rapist if a popular PhD mentor. Eva describes the unsolicited sexual advances in uncomfortable detail. Hellbent on reporting him, Eva is plagued by the idea she got on the PhD programme due to him fancying her and not because of her academic merit. Sandrine’s response is not one of reassurance. Initially, she is point-blank dismissive. Her stance softens over the course, subtle hints suggest her reluctance is informed by events in her own life. Sandrine too was once the victim of a sexual assault.
Jansen, a first-time actor, gives a seasoned performance. The added layer of Eva’s disability is astute, the physical manifestation of the film’s theme of ‘silencing’. A sensation enhanced by Blok’s various directorial details; Sandrine’s tendency to look at Anna while speaking and not Eva (who can lip read) or the drops in sound at various intervals, to sketch Eva’s auditory/ or lack of perspective. There is a frenzied energy as the conversation gets heated, the camera gently pans from close-up to close-up, then follows and circles around the characters. Eva breaks the teacher-student decorum as she flings herself away from her chair in anger, at one point Sandrine even lights a cigarette. As the discussion dials down, there is tad of earnestness in the disappointed faces of the exiting sisters. This is in contrast to Sandrine’s gloomy and cynical expression.
As Sandrine openly encourages Eva to repress her feelings, under the guise of not jeopardising her studies, career, avoid embarrassment etc. we suspect it’s born out of her own conformist view to be seen as a strong woman, and not a victim. But Eva understands that being the victim doesn’t mean being weak. She understands that silence isn’t strength. She is prepared to challenge Sandrine’s well-worn concept of a “strong woman”.
Beyond Silence has been shortlisted for this year’s Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film.
