Silent Tongue
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Movie Reviews of Silent Tongue
Movie Review: Quiet, hypnotic, and sometimes confusing
Summary: 3 Stars
A young man (River Phoenix) is grief-stricken by the death of his Indian wife. So much so that he guards over her corpse in the middle of the desert, with nothing but a rifle and his sanity. His father (Richard Harris) decides that in order to save his son, he must bring along the dead wife's sister and have them marry.
This was Phoenix's last film before his untimely death, and even though this Western drama doesn't really hold up today, it still has some nice qualities attached to it. First off, Silent Tongue does have a mystical, almost hypnotic look. It's filled with beautiful shots of the silent wasteland surrounding the characters. I was captivated by how the desert looked in the film. Plus, there was also some lovely divine music, that adds to the ambiance of the film's atmosphere (even if it does have that relatively corny 80's sound). The dialogue is very well-written, and its apparent simplicity seems appropriate for a quiet period Western such as this one. Unfortunately, there could have been improvements made for the plot, which is slightly convoluted and just downright strange. It's sometimes hard to follow, especially in the second half of the film when the spirit of the dead Indian wife becomes a major importance. I guess the screenplay is to blame, because it isn't very strong. There are so many questions that are unanswered. I know it's up for the viewer to decided what just happened (and what WILL happen), but the creators of this film seemed to have succeeded a bit too well. And Alan Bates.....well, let's just say that his performance is over-the-top. He's sometimes hard to understand due to his thick Irish accent, and his personality sometimes confuses the overall tone of the rest of the film.
Still, Silent Tongue is a good-looking Western, with a very hypnotic feeling attached to it. If you're looking for wall-to-wall action, then you better look somewhere else. This Western relies on dialogue, drama, and mysticism. There are good performances all-around, especially Phoenix and Harris, and the music is very nice. I just wish that the story itself would have been done better than what's here on the finished product.
Grade: C+
Movie Review: Do not buy - 2.35:1 image is cropped to 1.33:1
Summary: 1 Stars
Regional encoding is a sly device. People in the U.S., for instance, who want to see Sam Shepard's 1994 film 'Silent Tongue' will have to watch this bottom-of-the-barrel, pan-and-scan frisbee thrown out by Lions Gate. Meanwhile, folks in Germany have a decent 2.35:1 transfer with Region 2 encoding, which excludes most interested U.S. consumers.
Lions Gate. These folks are getting worse, more brazen in their lack of integrity. I mean, consider their cynical chop-and-dub job on the new release 'High Tension,' or their heavy promotion and wide distribution of garbage like 'House of 1000 Corpses' and 'Confidence' and simultaneous neglect of acclaimed films like 'Stevie' and 'May.'
The expense associated with giving consumers a 2.35:1 transfer is only marginally above that of a 1.33:1 transfer. The Lions Gate people are clearly bottom-line bean-counters who we must all hope will go bankrupt and disappear into a pile of ashes, if there's any justice in the world. Lot 47, Cowboy Pictures... it's the good guys who usually die, while rotters like Lions Gate live on with an undeserved longevity.