Vadim (Andriy Lidagovskiy) is a 22 year old Ukrainian sound recordist
and engineer who hasn't really found meaning in his life - when he gets
the chance to work for a Canadian videogame company recording Ukrainian
animals (including pets and farm animals) for a Biblical game based on
Noah's Ark - with a special bonus promised if he can record the singing of
an extremely rare, possibly extinct, mallard ... and if he succeeds, this
might mean his ticket out of the Ukraine and to Canada for good. To track
down said mallard, Vadim has to return to the town he grew up with and
reconnect with his mother (Irma Vitovska-Vantsa), who has issues with him
leaving the country - actually she has issues with everything concerning
Vadim and tries more and more to force her motherly love onto him.
Meanwhile, recording the animal sounds goes rather well, until he goes on
the trail of the rare mallard, almost dies in the swamps and is eventually
picked up by a border patrol who consider him a spy ... Frankly,
reading the synopsis of My Thoughts are Silent, it probably doesn't
sound like much, at best like a stale drama about mother and son having to
let go of one another - but the film's actually dead funny. And what makes
the movie really work is that its humour isn't obvious or blunt but very
subtle and laconic, with the lead's stoic performance and the directorial
effort that refuses to go for the cheap joke really helping to bring this
across, with the result being a very unique film that really manages to
bridge the gap between social drama and comedy and makes it seem
effortless and unforced at that. Well worth a look for sure.
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