Year: 2024

Runtime: 104 minutes

Directed by: Dāvis Sīmanis

Written by: Dāvis Sīmanis, Magali Negroni, Tabita Rudzāte

Starring: Olga Šepicka-Slapjuma, Inese Kučinska

By Sarah Manvel

This gorgeous black-and-white Latvian-Lithuanian coproduction is more than a biopic of the Latvian silent-movie actress Maria Leiko. It is also an act of defiance and contempt for Russia, then and now. Its importance is in its depiction of a history little-known outside the region which is very, very, very relevant globally in the current moment. But its value is in how it shows art as a tool for expression in every sense of the word.

Maria (Olga Šepicka-Slapjuma), who lived and worked primarily in Germany, is summoned to Moscow in 1937 because her adult daughter, Nora, has died there. They were not close, so Maria only learns Nora died in childbirth as she identifies her body. The baby has been sent to an orphanage but Maria is adamant she wants her granddaughter, also Nora, back. This is a problem. Since the baby was born in Russia she is only a Russian citizen, and to grant the paperwork which will allow Maria to return to Berlin with the baby will take some months. There’s a Latvian-language theatre in the city, the managers of which are thrilled to suddenly have a major star at their disposal, but Maria isn’t interested. Their standard of work is beneath her and also she’s a global star, not a local one. But no matter how famous you are, the baby, and the nurse assigned to look after the baby by the Stalinist authorities, still need to eat. 

So, against her better judgement, Maria begins work with the Latvian Skatuve Theatre, in an adaptation of an old Latvian story directed by Asja Lācis (Inese Kučinska). The previous lead actress is not thrilled to be sidelined, and on opening night hides razor blades in Maria’s wig. Maria knows how to handle professional jealousy and sabotage with ease, but is less comfortable in the Soviet circles in which she, as a celebrity who has chosen to move to Moscow in these dark times, is suddenly required to mingle. Though only a sociopath would be: government officials host banquets where the food is served on naked ladies and pistols are fired by members of the secret police during drunken arguments. Maria is beloved enough of a celebrity that men in positions of authority are willing to risk their careers to help her, but they can’t protect her. Under Stalin nobody can protect anybody. Bread trucks are circulating the city and everyone knows, without knowing, that they are not transporting bread. People start to vanish, including Asja (who was another real person). And Maria, who had never thought of herself as anything other than an actress, is suddenly much more than that. 

The beauty of Andrejs Rudzāts’ cinematography, Jonas Maksvytis’ sound and Kristīne Jurjāne’s production design go a very long way to make this tough story watchable, especially in the gorgeous sequences focused on the work of the theatre and how a play comes together in rehearsal. But Mr Sīmanis also made the directorial decision to de-emphasize the horrors outside of the theatre. We know what is to come when someone is forced into a bread truck, so we don’t need to see it. When the theatre group is sent on a tour of Latvian villages in Ukraine, it’s bad enough to see them trying to perform on outdoor stages in deep winter without needing to emphasize that their audiences were enslaved people refused permission to travel home. Throughout Ms Šepicka-Slapjuma underplays Maria, who is a quietly demanding presence offstage and a radiantly charming one under the spotlight. This interiority works extremely well in the difficult final sequence, when Maria has several choices to make about protecting her granddaughter, protecting her artistic integrity, protecting her colleagues, but most of all in protecting herself. 

And how Maria chooses to protect herself is through a remarkably brave act of defiance that obviously attracted this movie to the Berlinale. The festival is famously anti-fascist, but has been embroiled in some ugly controversy this year due to the German state’s wish to prevent people associated with the festival from speaking their minds about Palestine. It means the message of “Maria’s Silence” is more necessary than ever, and it’s such a shame that the imbroglio around this year’s festival might result in its excellence being lost.