The Silences

Overview

When you were a child, you came to a realisation. Every kid does. For your entire life, the people responsible for your existence had just been your parents, until one day, you began to understand that they were normal people too. They had hopes, dreams and experiences before you were born. You didn't know their whole story, and that lives didn't revolve solely around you. In The Silences, actress and filmmaker Margot Nash unpacks this line of thinking as she dissects her family's tale. She started when she was young, but didn't stop there, continuing into adulthood, bringing more details to light with every passing year, and digging even deeper after her mother's death in 2004.

With the writer-director also acting as narrator, The Silences gazes at pictures, reads letters, probes rumours and steps through recollections to provide a full picture of the people who brought Nash into the world. The true tale that results is equally ordinary and extraordinary, though the former isn't a flaw by any means. As the documentary gradually reveals more information about Nash's unhappy mum and mentally ill father, as well as her older sister and other secret sibling, it feels as intimate and specific to the figures involved as it does familiar to anyone who has ever delved into their own broader history.

That's the power of the personal cinema essay done well. It not only illuminates the topic at hand but taps into universal themes, with the likes of shame, loss, depression, and the impact of surviving both family hardship and war-torn times resonating here. For Nash, the process is clearly a confessional, cathartic one — as are clips from her previous shorts We Aim to Please, Speaking Out and Shadow Panic, and feature Vacant Possession, which she sprinkles throughout the film. For viewers, the act of watching offers a window into the lives of others, and a mirror to contemplate personal memories of their own.

Accordingly, the finished film proves both haunting and evocative. And indeed, while The Silences might play like a mix of tribute, detective story and memoir, it's still wholly a journey of discovery. Both for Nash, and for the audience with whom she so generously shares her tale.