‘A Place Called Silence’: Busan Review

Dir: Sam Quah. Malaysia. 2022. 104mins

A twisting, deftly-scripted crime thriller, Sam Quah’s Taiwan-set second feature mines the themes of responsibility, corruption and criminality that he previously explored in his 2019 debut Sheep Without A Shepherd. Here, Malaysian-Chinese director Quah effectively pulls in ideas of faith and forgiveness to this story of a masked killer who is targeting the students of a local all-girls high school and, in the process, poses intriguing questions about the manipulative nature of guilt, and how the choice to remain silent can actually speak volumes.

Picks apart the insidious influence of established power structures 

Premiering in Busan’s New Currents, A Place Called Silence should appeal to audiences looking for an involving narrative and striking modern noir visuals. The Thailand-set Sheep Without A Shepherd topped the Chinese box office on its release there in December 2019, boosted by star Joan Chen. Given the deterioration in relations between China and Taiwan since then, Silence stands little chance of a similar release, yet it could certainly strike a smilier chord in other Asian markets. It’s certainly accessible enough to travel further afield, particularly with support from a specialist distributor.

An atmospheric, rain-soaked opening sees terrified teenage girls run from a masked and axe-wielding figure, the long grass doing nothing to save them from their bloody fate. They are students from Jing Mu High School — a looming, brutalist building where tradition and authority is revered, but paint peels from the wall, the patched-up roof leaks into religious studies lessons and resident bully Angie (Moon Lee) terrorises fellow student Tong (Heme Liao) in the decrepit bathroom.

That Angie is the daughter of the school principal (Chung Hua-tou) is just one of the ways in which the film picks apart the insidious influence of established power structures. Angie’s’ privileged standing allows her to get away with her cruel behaviour, but she is not the only one leveraging her position. Tong’s mother Li (Shin Yin), the school cleaning lady, uses her knowledge of Angie’s bullying to blackmail the principal into allowing her daughter to stay in her special needs class, a place she believes Tong, who has not spoken a word since she was a child, will be best off.

That Tong is mute may seem to be a somewhat blunt embodiment of the film’s title, but she is just the most patent example of silence being a currency of sorts. Most of the characters here are tight-lipped, even those from the local Christian church who claim to be doing God’s work, such as enigmatic pastor Lin Zai-fu (Jian Constantine Huang). Between them, they spin a web of secrets and, if not outright lies, things left fatally unspoken. The screenplay, by Quah and co-writers Wei Lin and Yu Li Chen, is a slow drip-feed of information; regular flashbacks show us past events, both distant and recent, which shed an increasing amount of light onto proceedings, effectively shifting the perspectives of characters and audience

Fluid editing ensures that these flashbacks are absorbed into the drama. Ying Zhang’s intense, tightly-framed camerawork underscores the claustrophobia of living with such momentous secrets and of the constricting consequences of complicity and inaction. Events of the past leave their mark on the decaying walls of the school, the anxiety in Xiao Tong’s eyes, the scar on Li’s hand at which she absentmindedly scratches. Circles are an obvious motif for such a looping narrative and Quah deploys them at regular intervals; the drone of a ceiling fan, a face peering through a round window, water dripping on the taut surface of a drum all indicating that things may not be as they appear. 

And so it is when Tong goes missing, literally disappearing from under Li’s nose during a highly choreographed school assembly. In overtly comic sequences that prove, at times, tonally jarring, the local police chief is too wrapped up in his own power struggles to give the case his full attention; his officers varying degrees of inept. A somewhat far-fetched incident involving a peeping Tom’s conveniently-placed camera gives Li some clues as to her daughter’s fate, but also provides further insights as to why Tong may have been silent for all these years. 

From this point, the pace becomes frenetic, the twists become darker and revelations fly thick and fast. Some of the payoffs are not quite as satisfying as they have been set up to be; the killer and his motivations are clear from the mid-way point, for example, and Li’s denouement feels rather pat given the compelling complexity of her character. But, thanks to Quan’s energetic direction and some committed performances from his solid cast, the journey to A Place Called Silence remains an exhilarating ride.