When Marleen Gorris decided to become a filmmaker in Holland, she didn’t pick a warm fuzzy subject such as young love or an exploitive horror creature to start her award-winning career. She wrote and directed a film that dealt with a horrific moment with a feminist approach. She announced with A Question of Silence deal that she was going to go into the unchartered crevices. Her crime film wasn’t a who done it, but a why did they all do it. What made her snap. She also made the person investigating them not merely get an answer, but sense she might join them in their violence reaction.
Janine van den Bos (The Incorrigible Barbara‘s Cox Habbema) is a criminal psychiatrist appointed to assess if three women suspected of homicide are sane or insane. The three women had beaten to death a guy who owned Boutique 22, a women’s fashion store. This was not a robbery that went out of control. None of the three women knew each other at the time. There was not plotting. They all came from different backgrounds. Christine (Edda Barends) is a housewife who doesn’t get a chance to talk by her husband. Andrea (Henriette Tol) is an executive secretary at an office dominated by men. Annie (Nelly Frijda) is a loud waitress who deals with even louder customers. Their lives did not intersect until one afternoon at the clothing store. When one of them is caught shoplifting by the owner, something inside the other two allows them to get involved in a major way. Janine interviews the three of them inside their holding cells at the jail. Janine does her best to piece together the timeline of the crime. This gets complicated because Christine doesn’t want to share. The other two women discuss what they can that led them to brutally smash the guy’s skull with their shoes, a basket, glass from a display and more. The medical examiner explains the futility of determining which of the three women delivered the fatal blow. As Janine examines them, she comes to understand made the trio snap. But will the all-male legal system buy her report?
Marleen Gorris launched her career with a film that remains topical for today’s audience. I’m not sure if A Question of Silence was the first film to get into the subject of mansplaining, but that happens a lot to the female characters. Janine’s relationship with her husband turns into this. He’s worried her findings will screw up his career. He really doesn’t listen to her. The film gives us a taste of the Dutch legal system from back in 1982. The prosecutor and the defense lawyer sit at a table with the judge and some other guys in robes. The accused come up and down a staircase in the middle of the courtroom. The jail cells aren’t so spartan for the women. It almost looks like they’re staying in a cramped hotel room. During the killing scene, the women do look possessed as they unleash their anger on the store owner. It almost feels like an early David Cronenberg film except you can’t blame their actions on a mutation or parasite. There’s something bigger that links them to their violence. And that bigger thing is still present. A Question of Silence might be relevant more today than in 1982.
In the coming months, Cult Epics will be releasing Gorris’ Broken Mirrors and The Lost Island. These are the two films Gorris made before winning the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar for Antonia’s Line in 1995.
The Video is 1.66:1 anamorphic. The 2K transfer was made off a 35mm print and restored. Visually, there’s a rawness as if at some parts you’re watching a crime documentary. The audio is LCPM 2.0 Mono and DTS-HD MA 2.0 Mono. Both tracks are in Dutch. The movie is subtitled in English.
Audio Commentary by Film Scholar Patricia Pisters. She works at the University of Amsterdam. She gives us background of Gorris, the actresses and Holland in the early ’80s.
Interview with Director Marleen Gorris (11:14) is from the TV show Cinevisie in1982. Turns out Gorris made A Question of Silence without going to film school, making a short film or working in TV. She tackled a feature film right off the bat. Her script impressed a Dutch producer funding foundation. Gorris was struck by a newspaper article about three women who attacked an owner at a boutique which led to her fictionalized account.
Interview with actress Cox Habbema (16:22) was aired in 1983 as part of Cinevisie TV how. Cox was part of a mini-series that aired before the show. They go into her biography and focus on her work in A Question of Silence. She goes into how things got nasty when the film was shown at festivals with her and Gorris taking questions after screenings.
Polygon Journal Newsreel (0:46) 1982 has Gorris receive the Golden Calf at Netherlands Film Days in 1982 for A Question of Silence. There were a lot of people in the theater.
Promotional Gallery has posters, lobby cards, press photos and behind the scene stills.
Theatrical Trailer (3:02) goes into how the police are confused why the women did what they did at the dress store. What made them go mad?
Cult Epics Trailers includes A Woman Like Eve, The Cool Lake of Death, The Debut, Frank & Eva, Blue Movie and Amnesia.
Cult Epics presents A Question of Silence. Directed by Marleen Gorris. Screenplay by Marleen Gorris. Starring Edda Barends, Nelly Frijda, Henriëtte Tol, Cox Habbema, Eddie Brugman, Hans Croiset and Erik Plooyer. Running Time: 96 minutes. Rating: Unrated. Release Date: June 13, 2023.
