With the final vote officially closed on March 7, the 95th Academy Awards are almost underway and Ireland looks like the country to watch. While Paul Mescal of After sun (one nomination for Best Actor) and The Banshees of Inisherin (nine nominations, including Best Picture) have received the most media attention, one film has remained tacitly under the radar for most of its premier awards season. As Ireland’s first nomination in the Best International Feature Film category, The silent girl (A Cailín Ciúin) stands as one of the most intimate films in the entire list of Oscar nominees.
Assisted by writer/director Colm Bairéad and actress Catherine Clinch, The silent girl captures a delicate portrait of a young girl as she learns the true meaning of unconditional love. Born into an impoverished family, Cáit (Clinch) struggles to make her way in a family of six (seven or possibly eight). Her neglectful parents send her away to live with distant relatives in a devastating move of abandonment that soon turns into an opportunity for true family love and acceptance. Compete in a field full of industry favorites (No news from the Western Front) and proven winners (Argentina, 1985), this sleeper pick from Ireland hopes to stand out from the pack as a formidable contender for Best International Feature Film.
Slow cinema
The silent girl excels as a prime example of slow cinema, with its seemingly non-existent plot, internalized character performances, and brooding pace of life. And a lot of this has to do with how it was shot and edited. Captured by cameraman Kate McCullough, The silent girl relies on deliberate compositions with an emphasis on perspective to make the audience feel how Cáit feels at a certain point in the story. Slow motion effects, wide compositions and longer shots allow viewers to spend ample time with the characters on screen and invite you to think about the story as if you were Cáit himself.
Another aspect that enhances the slow cinema experience in this film is the thoughtful story and excellent screenwriting. While adapting Claire Keegan’s short story To feed, Bairéad creates layered characters packed with emotional baggage. Eibhlín (Carrie Crowley) and Seán Kinsella (Andrew Bennett), the sane couple who compassionately welcomes Cáit into their home, carry a burden of grief and trauma that can only be healed by the presence of a child. It is in this perfect marriage of broken children and broken families where their shattered pieces can be transformed into the perfect puzzle, finally complete.
While it is easy to make comparisons with Bicycle thieves (1948), The Florida Project (2017), ed Short term 12 (2013), The silent girl has most to do with the work of the French filmmaker Céline Sciamma. The writer/director most recognized for the Oscar nominee Portrait of a burning lady (2019) has a long filmography of stories centered on children. Girlhood (2014), Tomboy (2011), and recent Little mother (2021) all draw on similar themes of found family, identity construction, and parent-child relationships.
Best international = best foreign language
With Ireland comfortably in the center of attention at the Oscars, one wonders, “Why? The silent girl nominated for Best International Feature Film and The Banshees of Inisherin In 2020, the Academy made headlines when it changed the name of the Best Foreign Language Film category to the more socially accepted Best International Feature Film. What the Academy failed to do, however, was change the eligibility rules to reflect the change in the category name .
From now, the rules remain that eligible films must be “predominantly (more than 50%) in a language or languages other than English”, disqualifying a number of English-language films each year despite being from countries other than America. Remarkable, in 2019“Nigeria’s first-ever Oscar entry for Best International Feature Film [was] disqualified by prize organizers” because of the English-heavy dialogue, even though Nigeria’s official language is English.
The main difference between a movie like The silent girl and a movie like The Banshees of Inisherin is the language spoken. Despite the controversies surrounding the category’s voting rules, one benefit of the language eligibility rule is that it offers the ability to emphasize a country’s native language. While one can enjoy the Irish accents intertwined in the banter of banshees, there is also poetic beauty in the Irish language that one can come to appreciate. While Ireland in general has been highlighted significantly by this year’s Academy Awards, it’s also nice to have a film that takes the Irish language to the next level.
As a wonderful representation of the family mentality found in Ireland, The silent girl is certainly fit to win Best International Feature Film at this year’s Academy Awards. Watch the ceremony this weekend to see who will take home the award.