Silent Friend | Ildikó Enyedi

Pamela Jahn (PJ): Mrs Enyedi, what connects the three characters in your film with each other besides the ginkgo tree?

Ildikó Enyedi (IE): Goethe's scientific work, which I find incredibly original and interesting. Newton's view of a search for godlike goals and precise, narrow experiments to derive physical laws dominated scientific life until the beginning of the 20th century. Goethe, on the other hand, advocated participatory science – a “lively” science of direct experience and imagination. And all three protagonists unconsciously follow his path.

PJ: Are you yourself a very nature-loving person?

IE: My connection to nature is not instinctive, it's grounded in literature. I've always been reading a lot.

PJ: Did you feel you had to build a similar chemistry with the tree in the film as you did with your actors?

IE: Absolutely. It's no coincidence that we only see the old ginkgo tree in all its glory at the very end of the film. Before that, we only show parts of it, different aspects. I wanted the audience to slowly build a relationship with this special protagonist. For example, if you don't have a direct point of reference, such as a person standing next to it, you can't really imagine the size of the tree. We also shot the film over the course of a year, to show the radical seasonal changes as well as its journey through time during the last 120 years.

PJ: Greta, played by Luna Wedler, is the first to come across the tree and its secret powers. How does this encounter change her view of the world?

IE: For Greta, the university entrance exam is a traumatic experience; afterwards she sees her surroundings with completely different eyes. So far, the erotic, sensual element of nature was hidden from her. For a young woman at the turn of the century, this was a big taboo, but suddenly she has this deeply unsettling and ambiguous experience and, eventually, finds peace next to the tree. What's more: She finds the courage to face this sensuality of plants and explore it through photography.

PJ: As a woman and a filmmaker, do you believe in a “female gaze”?

IE: There are many different perspectives, but above all we have our own personal, culturally influenced view. The so-called “female gaze” is only one aspect among many, but it does exist. I give you an example: At our house, there is a shortcut to get into the building from the back, a rather dark alley with no artificial light. In his early twenties, my son confessed to me that as a child he was afraid to walk through this pathway. It's only since he became a teenager that he's happy to take the shortcut. Ironically, my daughter said that this was exactly when she started to be afraid of walking down the alley alone in the dark. I guess that says something about how unique we all are in the way we experience the world.

PJ: In a similar vein for Hannes in the film, who lives in the 1970s, everything revolves around sensations and exploring the senses.

IE: As a boy from the countryside, he knows how to approach plants instinctively, both physically and intellectually. While writing, I was reminded of Goethe's The Sorrows of Young Werther. There is a passage at the beginning where Werther is lying in the grass. He arrives in Wahlheim in May 1771 and rejoices in the spring. Nature is blossoming, just like Werther, who wants to become a ladybird. It seems like a revelation to him.

PJ: You yourself grew up in the 1970s. Do you feel closest to this episode?

IE: I love the fact that I don't really belong to any time or generation. I feel at home in the distant past, as well as in the present and perhaps also in the future. There are people who prefer to revel in memories of their childhood or their early 20s, but for me it's different. I spent my youth between sixteen and nineteen in the south of France at a post-68 school where many political movements actively coexisted at the time. But what interested me much more were the scientists who had the audacity and, perhaps, a foolish naivety to rethink the framework of our lives. 

PJ: Was it Goethe's scientific writings in particular that inspired you to make the film?

IE: He was certainly a very important inspiration. While for a long time I had certain reservations about some parts of Goethe's literary work, I've always been extremely enthusiastic about his natural science. But it's a combination of things. The academic plant experiments from the 1970s that I just mentioned also had a great impact on me. There is a very intellectual approach behind them. It's about developing a machine, sensors and an interface to find out what's going on inside another living being, that fascinated me.

PJ: There seems to be a parallel to filmmaking...

IE: My father was a very renowned scientist, so I instinctively wanted to stay away from academic research. But perhaps I would have made a good scientist myself, because I enjoy working on something specific for a long time. In research, you also need a vision, but to explore that idea, to test it, to see it, you have to take the risk of following a certain path for many years until you finally get a result – or not.

PJ: In your film you attempt to make the connection between humanity and nature not only visible but also aurally accessible with the help of specific sounds.

IE: Yes, in any case, it's not a classic story-driven film. I also wanted to indirectly convey smells and touch, all the things that we can't directly experience in the cinema, the inexpressible and the invisible. To do this, we had to invent certain sounds, because sometimes these are merely tactile sensations or feelings in the state of our mind.

PJ: Can you give an example?

IE: At the very beginning of the film, you see a seed slowly opening and developing into a sprout – a tiny process, but it appears in close-up on the screen. We worked for days on the sounds for this scene. They are more aggressive and eerie than you would expect from a small sprout. I wanted to convey to the viewer that they should not expect a film with ancient trees and pretty little flowers in it. Nature has power, it has secrets, it has its own hidden beauty, and you must take it seriously and respect its superiority.

PJ: Your film is also about the desire to belong. As someone with a migrant background, is this what you relate to the most?

IE: I like being alone, I don't feel lonely. But I always feel a personal kind of barrier between myself and the rest of humanity. I admire people who are completely self-sufficient. I don't mean that ironically at all. Since my childhood, I have been trying to build a connection between myself and the world via an imaginary bridge, to somehow prove my right to exist. It needs an interface. I think many creative people feel a similar urge.

PJ: Is that also the feeling you wanted to convey with your previous film On Body and Soul?

IE: In that film, I was looking for that state we all enjoy so much, a kind of “flow”. When we dream, we can't be politically correct, we can't be polite or decide where the story takes us. For example, I'm one of those people who watches silly cat videos on YouTube. Why? Because we see a little creature that is completely present, without restrictions, without plans or regrets, without anything to hide, without the desire to behave. It's similar with the baby in Silent Friend, who forms the basis of Tony Leung's character's research.

PJ: Do you feel that On Body and Soul and Silent Friend are more closely related than, for example, your epic love drama The Story of my Wife?

IE: I really like that film, it's a Buddhist film. It has a special place in my heart, not least because it was largely misunderstood. I am deeply grateful to those who discovered it and were touched by it in one way or another. The protagonist is a traditional guy, a captain who, like many men today, doesn't understand what has happened to the rules and norms he grew up with; he is unsure of what is now expected of him. I wanted to show this deep unease in him, and that at the end of the film, after much pain, he realises that every person is unconditionally exposed to nature, that even as a captain – or any other man in power, for that matter – he cannot control the ocean or the people around him. Any attempt only leads to tragedy and violence.