Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * *

Cast: Claes Bang, Olga Kurylenko, Brian Cox, Assaad Bouab, Alice Krige, Caroline Goodall, Shalisha James-Davis, Litiana Biutanaseva, Lilibet Biutanseva, Duncan Doff, Maroussia Frank, Gijs Scholten van Aschat, Hannah van der Westhuvysen, Agri Scott, Kirsten Davies, Max Frankel, Emily Heyworth, Kaycee Fernandes.

The worst of nightmares to affect any parent is the loss of their child. That sense of despair is heightened when they don’t know how the baby died, that they might not have been able to say goodbye before putting them in the ground and dealing with their grief, separately or together.

Films rarely touch on this private heartache, art seldom suggests anything other than passing by with an acknowledgement to the human condition, for there is really nothing that cannot be gained from such a light being shone in that direction, except empathy; and empathy in today’s world is arguably in horribly short supply.

To build a mystery, a tale of intrigue around such an event may seem indelicate, but conversations perhaps need to be had if a larger section of society is to understand the depth of feeling, the sheer will it takes to face such a loss and attempt to still see life through the eyes of the carefree spirit you once were.

It is in the loss of innocence that The Bay of Silence frames itself to, the duality of the damage done by those that supposedly were to be trusted to never harm and the consequences of the actions taken, the ramifications of catalogued abuse, to which the silence must eventually be released in a form of vocal uprising, or forever be turned inside out, to manifest itself as a spectre in the mind which cannot be unheard.

Whilst The Bay of Silence does its best to capture the emotion that is being displayed by the brooding presence of Claes Bang as Will and the repressed fear of Olga Kurylenko’s Rosalind, the mystery of Rosalind’s life, her association and history with Milton, played with underrated sincerity by Brian Cox, the film is not developed enough to really express its own desires or see perhaps where it wanted to be truly be, stuck as it seems between wanting to explore how suppression can lead to mental illness or the domination of control can be turned to violent and insidious ends, and that of a heartfelt portrayal of anguish, of wanting to tell the tale of two adults in the midst of their own grief.

You can have a story that weaves between the two narratives with ease, but it would be more overwhelming than it is necessary, perhaps even gratuitously so. The fine line trod in The Bay of Silence is to be admired, but unfortunately it becomes the victim of its own suppression. By not going deeper, by offering the kind of resolution that is arguably flat, it gives way to sympathy, and by-passes empathy completely.

The Bay of Silence is a film of noble intentions, but one that ultimately fails to deliver the twist that was expected, or the reveal it demanded.

Ian D. Hall