Review of Silence

This is an extraordinary movie! Eoghan, a sound recordist, returns from 'exile' in Germany to his native Ireland where he seeks out spaces in which to record free from human sounds. We follow him into fields, to the seashore, into forests, into a pool at night, onto the vast empty landscapes of Donegal where awesome undulating swirls of rock stand mutely before us, and we linger and gaze at the man and the places and listen to the sounds . . . But Eoghan's wanderings are not to be without human sounds for he encounters several individuals - a publican, a landowner/farmer, a writer among them - mostly men but one woman. Briefly talk takes place,sometimes in English, sometimes in Irish Gaelic: observations, reflections, talk rendered in an extremely natural fashion. Finally, Eoghan arrives at Tory Island and the house in which his family once lived. The house is now empty, derelict - an intensely human space free forever from the human sounds that once made it 'house', 'home', 'birthplace'. This space is silent yet full of sound. (Viewed at Screen 3, The Cornerhouse, Manchester, UK on 25 August 2013)