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A Jesuit priest and doctor, Fr. Joachim Ferrer (Gerard Depardieu), shows a particular interest in
the case of one of his patients, Sr. Sarah (Elodie Bouchez), a fundamentalist Carmelite nun who has been having fits of depression. But the nun's community, led by Mother
Emmanuelle, as a rule does not take chemical medicines, so they check Sr. Sarah out of the hospital to attend to her healing themselves. Little does anyone know that both
the priest and the nun each have dark secrets in their past that they themselves have kept hidden from each other. To the bewilderment of his superior, Fr. Joachim pursues
Sr. Sarah to her convent but Mother Emmanuelle rejects his offer of help. Baffled by Sr. Sarah's extreme secretiveness, Fr. Joachim tries to dig into her past and discovers
that she has a twin sister, Gaelle (Bouchez again), who is serving a life sentence for killing a child. Gaelle is released on parole and her path crosses that of Fr.
Joachim.
The Pact of Silence(Le Pacte du Silence) bears the common hallmarks of a so-called art film (which it is touted to be): a brain-draining plot, well-chosen cast, sensitive acting, good directing, a script that neither wastes your time nor insults your intelligence, well-thought out lighting, sounds and cinematographic effects, etc. But like many art films, it tends to overdo (or overlook?) one aspect or another of the production. In this case it is the flow of the story. It seems so focused on emoting that the continuity of the story suffers, leaving loopholes and loose edges here and there, diminishing the film's aesthetic value. You come out of the movie house wondering who really did what, how did this character get here, what really happened to that character after a certain event, etc. Is the choppiness of the screenplay deliberate? If so, why?
Why, too, does the movie seem so intent on focusing the limelight on the dark side of consecrated
men and women, as if shooing the sleeping bats out of the cave in order to expose their ugliness to the light? True, that men and women of the cloth have their own weaknesses
to grapple with, but for one "art film" to put these things under a microscope…? What statement could the film possibly want to make here? Mature and enlightened
adults can take the film with an objective eye, but its very subject may prove to be injurious to vulnerable young minds, especially if they already have unanswered questions
about their faith to begin with.
(Date Reviewed: September 12, 2003)
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