When the credits rolled at the end of the Venice screening of Silent Friend and the plants appearing in the film were also listed along with the actors' names, the audience gave them a round of applause as well, and Ildikó Enyedi thought to herself, "This is okay then." The director believes that the world is technologically ready for us to live on a happy planet where living beings communicate with each other in a friendly manner, nevertheless, there have been shocking setbacks in the area of gender equality. The Hungarian-German-French co-production Csendes barát (Silent Friend), which has won several awards, premiered at the Venice Film Festival, and one of the lead roles is played by Tony Leung Chiu-Wai, known from the films of Wong Kar-Wai. In addition to surprising research into plant acoustics, we spoke with Ildikó Enyedi about how Hungarian filmmakers in their prime cope with not being able to shoot, and what she thought of the screenwriter who appeared at the premiere of the Hungarian film Hunyadi wearing a T-shirt with the words FUCK NER (NER – an abbreviation used for the Orbán regime) on it.
In the first few minutes of the film, one of the main characters vomits on the other main character, an old ginkgo biloba tree. Do we really treat nature this badly?
It's just an introduction, an interesting first encounter. I didn't want to make anyone feel guilty while watching it. It was meant to be a funny episode, because although the film is not a slapstick comedy, humour is an important element in it. So that we wouldn't beat ourselves up while our jaws are clenched, about how shitty we are as people. The film tries to steer the viewer toward curiosity instead.
After a scene in the movie where young people throw cigarette ash on a geranium, the viewer sitting next to us called the actors "assholes". How much did you intend for this film to evoke empathy for plants and elicit such visceral reactions?
I'm glad that this happened to this member of the audience, as that was precisely my goal, but as a director, one can only quietly hope that such emotional responses will come about – you can never know in advance. I also had a wonderful surprise in Venice: my spies at the press screening reported that when the list of all the plants featured in the film appeared in the end credits, right after the actors, the audience gave them a round of applause. I said: “This is okay then”.
Were there any discoveries or scientific experiments related to plants that particularly surprised you during the preparation phase?
I have been following research into plant communication for decades, ever since I was a teenager. One major discovery was Monica Gagliano's research project. Gagliano is a marine biologist who became a plant communication researcher and currently mostly focuses on plant acoustics. The “hearing of plants”, in quotation marks – because, as humans, we can only approach the phenomena of the living world in an anthropomorphic way. For example, if we play the sound of bees buzzing to a blooming plant, the plant will start producing extra pollen even if there are no bees anywhere near it. Plants also make sounds, so they are not as silent as the title of our film suggests. To us, these sounds are not very musical, just small, clicking noises.
But it's not so much Gagliano's research findings as her personality, her worldview, and her vivid, inspiring way of speaking that I find so encouraging, the way she places these scientific findings in a philosophical context. I recommend her lectures, which can be found online, to everyone. She's funny, charming, and goes very deep.
Did you use any specific scientific assistance during filming?
We were assisted by many experts, neurologists, and scientists specialising in plant communication. The CEU and ELTE's "babylab," which focuses on early cognitive development, were a great help to us. I would like to take this opportunity to thank Professor György Gergely and Bálint Forgács for their selfless and multifaceted assistance. We also had neurologist partners at the University of Hong Kong and the University of Marburg. Martin Heine was a huge support in helping us to faithfully presenting plant communication research. He restored original instruments from the 1970s to working order, and the sensors mounted on the old ginkgo tree during the 2020 timeline are his inventions, they are actually used in agriculture. Heine is a German electrical engineer who has been building interfaces since his teenage years to record plant signals, which can then be interpreted in various ways. It was in Sellye, where the old tree stands that the crew experienced firsthand that these interfaces really work. After placing the sensors on the tree and the leaves, Martin connected them to his laptop, which had special software capable of interpreting these signals.
And what we saw was that when the crew went on their lunch break, the tree seemed to "relax" a little.
Our geranium also reacted in real time, much to the surprise of the crew. In Marburg (the story takes place in the botanical garden of this German city), Martin found another enthusiast, with whom he assembled a device that amplified the very weak electrical signals coming from the geranium and was used to open the garden gate.
A key element of Silent Friend is how it uses close-ups and sound effects to make the life of plants tangible. But how can you give a tree personality in a film?
In the film before my previous one, On Body and Soul, I had to find a way to make us us view animals as complex beings, as characters equivalent to two human characters. To do this, cinematographer Máté Herbai and I used classic film language tools, such as over-the-shoulder shots (where the camera films one character from behind the shoulder of another) or "unnoticeable" cuts from close-up to wide shot and vice versa. These are familiar, comfortable solutions for the viewer, because if the film shows two creatures interacting in the same way as two humans, then the viewer can more easily see them as persons. This was even more difficult here because a mammal at least has a face and its body is covered with fur, making it much easier for us to relate to than a creature that has neither. That's why we did everything we could to somehow open up to these very different creatures and present them in a much more personal way than in a National Geographic-style documentary. Sound design also played an important role in this interpretation. For example, we worked for days to make the little sprout that grows at the beginning of the film sufficiently strange, so that it wouldn't only seem like a cute little plant, but as a mysterious, powerful, and exciting creature.
A famous Hungarian writer recently posted about his geranium, which was still bare on New Year's Eve, but after he brought it into the stairwell to protect it from the cold, it blossomed, which he interpreted as a message for Ildikó Enyedi. Have you heard similar stories about people being practically affected by your film and, say, becoming more caring towards their houseplants?
How sweet! Actually, yes, the film does have an instant effect—and this was already noticeable during filming. The crew members were also very moved by the experiences they had during filming, even though they hadn't seen the finished film yet. At the end of the shoot in Germany, as a farewell gift, I gave them each a small bag of different kinds of flower seeds, which everyone then planted somewhere.
You have spoken several times about how the international reception of your previous film, The Story of My Wife, hurt you quite a bit, and that you didn't understand the sentiment expressed in some reviews after the Cannes premiere. What were your feelings going into the Venice screening of Silent Friend after all that?
Before every premiere, filmmakers have a big lump in their stomachs, and I've experienced this every time. Just the other day, Marci Rév and I were talking about how, before shooting The Story of My Wife, I warned him about the danger that there might be resistance to presenting a traditionally raised male protagonist using traditional cinematic language. I wrote two very different screenplays, one set in a mockup world or sorts, a strongly auteur version, and a more traditional one, where the creators remain in the background and all the attention is on the two main actors. In the end, we decided on the traditional film language instead of the irregular, auteur-style one, even though we knew it was the riskier choice and could easily be misunderstood, but we considered it—and I still consider it—to be more honest.
We suspected we would get a slap in the face, and we did.
This time, before the screening in Venice, we were mainly worried about whether the humour in the film would work, because if it did, then everything else would be clear. That this is not a story about people, but about a tree, and that the film's strength lies not in the story, but in something else: sensations, experiences. Although, where the film ultimately ends up, with the first orgasm of a 150-year-old lady, an old ginkgo tree, isn't such a bad story, if one really wants a story. Silent Friend is actually about something very similar to The Story of My Wife, only
this time it is not another person, but a plant that we should understand instead of trying to control.
Interestingly, the negative reactions in Cannes were mainly felt in Hungary; before and after that, we received a lot of wonderful feedback. At the so-called press junket in Cannes, where journalists don't give their opinions but ask questions, for the first time in my life, almost every journalist came up to me separately and told me how much they loved the film: they wanted to let me know that it was okay, they liked it. It felt incredibly good.
In your first film, My 20th Century, there is a famous scene where one of the main characters listens to Otto Weininger's university lecture. In the lecture, he says that "women are not only immoral, lying creatures incapable of thinking, but they do not even exist." Thirty-five years later, in The Silent Friend, you seem to have filmed a mirror image of this scene, in which we see a sexist and misogynistic university professor. Has the perception of women changed so little in the time that has passed?
Equality has not been achieved even on the happier half of our planet, but there is a significant part of the planet where there have been quite shocking setbacks in this area. Technologically, the world is ready to be a happy, multigender planet where living beings communicate with each other in a friendly manner, where there is no need to hunt mammoths in groups or keep the fire burning in caves anymore. This would be in the interest of men just as much as it would be in the interest of women. This is why it was important to me in The Story of My Wife to look at a traditional man who grew up learning that if he does not control the situation or the other person, he is a failure and does not fulfil his role as a man, from an understanding, female perspective.
When you were judging entries for the CineCollegium competition, the independent film fund of the Budapest International Film Festival organisers, you said that the current film subsidy system in Hungary is inadequate and that the industry is in an impossible situation. Have any of your creative staff leave because they were fed up with this situation?
Everyone in my circle is busy with work. It's the directors who are suffering under the current system. Many international productions have been filmed in Hungary so far, and I don't mind that people earn normal salaries in these productions, so they can take on a project like Lesson Learned for a symbolic amount or no money at all. Imola Láng, the production designer for my films, and for Lesson Learned, among others, told me that when she was unscrewing the doors at the school where the film was being shot, the director, Bálint Szimler, came up to her bewildered to ask what she was doing. That's when he realised that Imola, who is used to working with large teams, was now her own one-member team. I think this story illustrates well that there are wonderful people working in this profession who love to be involved in something they really believe in.
Why do you consider the situation of filmmakers to be undeserved?
These films, made with great determination under modest circumstances, represent Hungary at festivals around the world. They are memorable films about us, addressing issues that are extremely important to us, and they are of a high artistic standard. Zsófia Szilágyi's film One Day is still talked about at international festivals, even though it has been several years since it won the FIPRESCI prize at Cannes. People would be shocked if they knew the difficult circumstances under which it was made – and since then, the situation for independent filmmakers has become much more difficult. Moreover, this situation does not only affect young directors; there is also the case of György Pálfi, for example. This situation is very familiar to me. You are in your prime, you want to work, you are full of ideas, but if you aren't making films, it's eating you up inside.
It is this rejection that births reactions such as when screenwriter Zsófi Ruttkay, wife and creative partner of György Pálfi, appeared at the premiere of the Hunyadi series (which received huge state funding – TN) wearing a T-shirt with the words FUCK NER printed on it. What is your opinion of such reactions?
I think it was very cool. I was at the premiere, and I ran into Zsófi in the ladies' room. I remember telling her how beautiful she looked that day because I saw something in her face that made her glow. Let's not forget that they have spent years in this impossible situation—years that will never come back.
Both Lesson Learned and Explanation for Everything were direct responses to our present situation and the mood in the country. Your films are not like that; they approach universal themes from a different perspective. As a viewer, how do you feel about such direct films? When you judged the entries submitted to CineCollegium, did films of this type dominate there too?
I really like the films you mentioned, and Lesson Learned, for example, is not only a response to our present. It was a very personal story by Bálint Szimler, but on the other hand, the film would have been just as valid for the nineties, the eighties, or even the fifties.
Among the judged entries, there were several that were made in response to what young creators are experiencing today or what they consider important, and these entries contain many universal themes such as family, relationships, and finding one's place in the world. These are not directly provocative films. They are free-spirited projects that deal with
what the creators are really interested in, and that is not waking up and going to bed to Orbán, because that would be pretty boring.
The production of Silent Friend was supported by the National Film Institute (NFI), as were your previous films. Does it cause you inner tautness that other filmmakers do not have such opportunities?
I don't have a guilty conscience about it. For example, we didn't expect the NFI to support this film, as Silent Friend is a German-French co-production, with Hungary coming in as the third partner. Anyway, the film institute was absolutely fair with us. Their resources are intended to be used for the production of Hungarian films. For example, I am very happy that Lili Horvát also received support, although not as much and not at the pace that would have been ideal, but at least she was able to shoot her film.
I think that as filmmakers, it is our job to apply to the organization created for this purpose. If you can tell in advance that you won't get funding, don't apply, because it will only wear you down and waste your time. CineCollegium is here to signal that while the National Film Institute is failing to fulfill its statutory duties, something needs to be done, and we shouldn't become so fragmented; we should stick together and help each other.
Have you ever tried to intercede or lobby on someone's behalf?
No, I have no influence whatsoever, nor would I know who to lobby with. I don't really want to look into that world and see who makes decisions and on what basis.
Our conversation with Ildikó Enyedi would have ended there, but just then the news of Béla Tarr's death arrived. We therefore asked the director about her relationship with Tarr's oeuvre and with the filmmaker himself. You can read Ildikó Enyedi's response in this article.
Silent Friend will be screened in Hungarian cinemas from January 29.
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