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Cult Review
Senior Film Conservator
If you have a soft spot for historical relics or films that don't mind moving at a glacial pace, sure. Grab it. If you want something that keeps you on the edge of your seat, stay far away. This is for the patient viewer who likes hearing stories that have been worn down by time.
It’s strange to watch Two Minutes Silence today. It feels less like a movie and more like a collection of echoes. You’ve got these characters just sitting there, turning over their memories of the First World War like they’re smooth stones in their pockets.
The pacing? It’s essentially non-existent. It just sort of drifts from one person to the next. Sometimes it works, and sometimes I felt like I was waiting for a bus that was never going to show up. 🕰️
There’s a specific scene where someone is describing the mud. Not the big, cinematic mud of a modern blockbuster, but just the plain, gross, clinging misery of it. It hit me harder than any of the dialogue. It felt real in a way the rest of the film struggles to be.
The cast is… well, they’re very much of their time. Lots of stiff posture and voices that seem to come from a stage rather than a room. It takes a second to get used to, but once you do, it starts to feel like you’re eavesdropping on a conversation from another century.
I found myself thinking about Hearts and Let Us while watching this. Both films have that weird, heavy atmosphere of people trying to make sense of a world that stopped making sense years ago.
There are moments where the film just stops. It holds a shot of a face, eyes looking off into nothing, and you have to wonder if the camera operator just forgot to cut. It’s awkward. It’s also exactly the kind of thing that makes you actually *watch* instead of just listening to the dialogue.
Some of the performances are a bit wobbly. You can see the actors thinking about their next line, and it pulls you right out of the tragedy of it all. Still, I didn't hate it.
Ultimately, it’s a bit of a dusty artifact. It’s not going to change your life, and the editing feels like it was done with a pair of rusty garden shears. But there’s a soul to it. It cares about its people. That’s enough for me on a rainy Tuesday.
IMDb —
1923
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