Stories work well when they serve two purposes. Entertainment is one thing, but if you can use a narrative as a chance to do something deeper and more meaningful, so much the better. In what is probably our favorite film at Fantastic Fest, Eduardo Casanova‘s Silencio is a shining example of how a genre (in this case, horror) can be a Trojan horse for getting to the heart of a socially impacting topic.
Imagine, if you will, a film with a hook about vampirism is actually a means to convey how (among other ideas) how AIDS has affected many people. Oh, this is also about coming out from under the thumb of your parents, dispelling lies we’ve been told, becoming your own person, and then there’s a love story. Yeah, that threw me for a loop, too. The main message in the film is that Silence = Death. Casanova is telling us that the only way to get through or get over something is to acknowledge it, to vocalize it, and then the healing can begin. It’s something that, honestly, applies to all walks of life making this story ever more universal than you’d expect from the synopsis:
In the 1300s, four vampire sisters decide how to make up for their dwindling food supply as Europe is in the grip of the Black Plague. In 1989, a vampire falls in love with a human junkie who tests positive for HIV. And in 2030, a vampire/human couple reflect on the state of their world after a surprising medical breakthrough.
In short, this film is incredible. I truly love the message, the metaphor and how this was adapted to social topics. It’s really inventive, gorgeous, and the humor/jokes were very well placed and appreciated; hard to believe that the film manages so much weighty content in less than sixty minutes.
We got to sit with Casanova to talk about these themes, which are extraordinary. This is such a dense story that it deserves to be explored and re-watched several times. The time spent in our interview was not enough to even scratch the surface of how impacting the film is. But we sure tried! And fun was had. Enjoy this episode of The GoSeeTalk Podcast Experience!
