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The mother (Celine O’Leary) loses patience with her daughter’s silence, declaring that she won’t live in a pigsty any longer. The father (Paul Blackwell) tries to cheer her up with an offer to cook – but the mother has the dinner already planned. The girl (Chloe Ferguson) renews her stubborn determination to bring her parents back together by her silence.
Curator’s notes
Much of the film is shot from low angles to approximate the child’s height. The deep shadows across the mother’s face suggest a dark anger, and de Heer uses shadows on walls to suggest scary monsters. We often see these shadows before one of the adults enters the room. The contest of wills intensifies in this scene and it’s a three-way struggle in which the child is at least as determined – and probably more cunning – than the adults.
