The Sound of Silence

Rating: Null/10 (12 March 2012)

It would definitely be a mistake to regard this movie just as a first hand love story. Not that it isn't! But beyond that it is a beautifully narrated story of a violent awakening from the lethargy and boredom of a ready-made life. I would say that in order to fully enjoy and understand the richness and complexity of this movie, one has to see it in the light of another movie, Antonioni's Blowup, made just one year earlier. If the "awakening" takes place there through the photographic art - the picture taken with the camera being the last open window through which one can see the real life - here its about the way true, passionate love can pull somebody out of the hypnotic reality of the daily life, which is merely a chimera. In both cases, the usual way of thinking about art or love is turned up side down. The art is not something apart and different from this world, a mere dream, but precisely the opposite. Its our only chance to begin to understand our inherent drifting away and apart. The same consideration applies for love too. Or, for that matter, only for that kind of love which is not reduced to making the time pass by.
This movie its about disquiet and boredom. Its about the fragility of a very young and inexperienced Ulysses who finds himself at the beginning of his real life, and who inevitably falls pray to a much older Calypso; but in its nevertheless optimistic tone - unlike Blowup - its also about fighting off the suitors and finding the way home.