The Secret Life of Words (2005)
IMDb SYNOPSIS: Hannah, who wears a hearing aid, is forced to go on holiday. On holiday she manages to find a job: caring for Josef, a burn victim on an oil rig who temporarily lost his sight, until he’s stable enough to be transferred. There is almost no one on the rig, except a cook, an oceanographer and a few others out at sea. Hannah tends to Josef and he slowly breaks her shell of silence.
REVIEW: I’m breaking protocol a bit here and using the IMDb synopsis instead of NF because I think the less known about this film’s actual plot the better and the NF version reveals a crucial character point about Hannah that we’re not meant to know. In fact one of the main points of the story is that Hannah is a complete mystery throughout most of the film. (And for goodness sake, please don’t read the reviews - spoilers abound!) This is a character study, and Hannah is fascinating from the beginning - taciturn, repressed, she seems to live in a fragile shell. Early on we see her in the cafeteria at her workplace and she eats (always alone) the same thing everyday - plain white rice, some chicken, and a piece of apple. Later we see her at home, eating the same meal, which she takes out of an almost empty refrigerator. This is a woman who is so closed off from herself that she purposely makes her life as bland as possible, she’s scared to take even the most simple pleasure of the taste of food.
The film is setup as a kind mystery - not of plot, but of character. What happened to Hannah to make her shut out life so utterly? Who is the child that narrates during the opening sequences? As Hannah grows closer to the burn victim Josef, who has his own horrible secret, both characters slowly open up to each other, layer by layer. Tim Robbins and especially Sarah Polley are both brilliant playing complex characters, revealing themselves bit by bit as the story progresses, until the final revelations of both, culminating in a full 10 minute monologue by Hannah late in the story. This is pretty daring stuff for writer/director Isabel Coixet do to in a contemporary film - the camera barely moves from Hannah’s face during the entire speech, yet it is as mesmerizing and chilling as it could possibly be. Polley gives an Oscar-worthy performance, she doesn’t raise her voice or even make a sudden movement thru the entire movie (early on she’s like a dead woman walking), yet she’s portraying a character in incomprehensible pain and outrage.
There is beautiful imagery in both the language and the cinematography. The oil rig on which most of the action takes place is as isolated and desolate as the lives and psyche’s of the two main characters. The rig is beautifully photographed, a kind of iron tower standing strong in the midst of an always battering sea, it ultimately becomes an ironic metaphor for the survival and even possible redemption of two people who themselves have been battered by terrible tragedy in their lives.
After seeing the movie I get aggravated reading reviews, even positive ones, that say “You have to be patient” and so on. BS. This is a quiet character piece exploring important, relevant, adult themes and if you can catch on to its mood early on - that mystery of character - it is compelling in every single moment.
4 stars
Harold
