Silent Friend: challenging and rewarding, ENYEDI Ildikó’s multifaceted drama tells three stories, all located roughly in the same location, featuring a majestic gingko tree. The oldest one, early in the 20th Century, follows a young woman, the first to be accepted to study in a local German university. The second one, in the early 1970s, two college students living in the same house connect over the geranium that one of them is studying. The last one, set in 2020, features a visiting neuroscientist from Hong Kong who gets stranded by the pandemic. Thematically, all stories are about forming connections and curiosity as an important ingredient.

Acting is efficient, without any sort of showboating, a great match to the serene tone: Luna Wedler plays the young student who needs to break barriers, Enzo Brumm plays the young man who makes quite the interesting breakthrough, and the great Tony Leung Chiu-wai plays the gentle and isolated neuroscientist. Léa Seydoux and Sylvester Groth are fine in their supporting roles, as well.

Cinematographer PÁLOS Gergely and editor SZALAI Károly create a visually beautiful film. The film uses 3 stocks: austere black-and-white for the earliest session, grainy and saturated for the middle, and crisp with cold colours for the more recent one. The editing also uses other, almost abstract imagery to complement; the pace is slow, but it’s always far from uninteresting.