Writer/director Barak Barkan has made his feature debut with the psychological thriller Silence & Darkness, which has a very economical set-up that's perfect for a debut film. The majority of the story takes place in one location, the home of a family that consists of a widower doctor Father (Jordan Lage) and his two teenage daughters: Anna (Mina Walker), who is blind, and Beth (Joan Glackin), who is deaf and therefore can't speak. Since the girls aren't able to communicate through regular sign language, they communicate through tactile signing, which involves touch.
Anna and Beth are left home alone while Father goes to work, and a lot of the film's 78 minute running time focuses on their lonely existence. They haven't been left with much to do other than watch recordings of gymnastics and Bob Dylan performances - things which certainly seem to entertain them; Anna has developed a "musical obsession", and Beth is seen practicing gymnastics in front of an imaginary audience in the back yard, but still... it doesn't seem like much of a life.
The thriller aspect comes into the picture early on. When we're introduced to Father, he seems like a nice guy, and the girls adore him. But then we follow him to work, and it starts to become clear that Father is some kind of a creep. He has strange, inappropriate interactions with patients, and it turns out that he's keeping an archive of audio tapes where he speaks about his daughters as if they're his own private science experiment. All the warmth he displays when he's around the girls is completely missing when he records those tapes.
Barkan holds off on letting us know exactly what's going on with Father, which makes the film intriguing even though there isn't anything major happening most of the time. We're suspicious of Father nearly from the start, and Anna and Beth become more and more suspicious of him as the film goes on. The film really follows the crumbling of their home life as the girls start to figure out that Father is the person they thought he was. The viewer sees plenty of examples of Father doing very questionable things, and I'm sure anyone who watches the movie is going to be speculating just how awful he is the whole time, like I was. What is he doing to these girls?
Silence & Darkness may be too uneventful for some, but I was hooked throughout, anxious to learn the answers to the questions Barkan was setting up.
Anna and Beth are very low-key characters, which is understandable with the way they've been raised, but Walker and Glackin did great work in the roles, making these sisters fascinating to watch. And easy to root for. We want to see them figure out what their Father is up to, and to get away from his stealthily sinister influence. Lage also does well in his role, making Father a disgusting character - he's outwardly pleasant, but we know he's a scumbag.
This is a rather quiet, subdued movie, and if you can tune into its wavelength and get wrapped up in the mystery, it's well worth the watch. It's a good start to Barkan's feature career, and also a nice showcase for the three leads.
Distributed by Alarm Pictures in the US, Canada, and the UK, Silence & Darkness is available to watch on VOD and various streaming platforms.
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