Showing @ Cineworld, Edinburgh Sun 22 Jun & Wed 25 Jun

Saodat Ismailova / Uzbekistan/Netherlands/France/Germany / 2014 / 88mins

Contemplative, hypnotic, puzzling and utterly beautiful; Saodat Ismailova’s film never leads us by the hand. Instead it allows us to observe and experience its world and the lives of its characters in an intimate and sympathetic way. Bibicha (Rukhshona Sattarova) has returned to her grandmother’s house in the mountains and taken a vow of silence. She shares the house with her divorced aunt and her illegitimate daughter. Both women are injured birds returning to their nest and their grandmother gives them firm but loving care.

Whilst Bibicha never speaks, the sound design heightens the aural world that surrounds her. Snow crunching underfoot, breathing and the noise of her grandmother’s strong hands touching hers all become more intense and are our only clues as to the turmoil inside of her. There’s no three act structure here; no crisis and resolution. There’s merely the inner and outer lives of these three women each holding on to private pain, but that’s more than enough to make this film a fascinating and wholly engrossing experience. The only flaw in the cinema is that you can’t rewind it and watch it again. It’s a film that you want to view more than once in the hope that you might be drawn deeper into its quiet world.

Showing as part of Edinburgh International Film Festival 2014