Maria’s Silence

Even the opening scenes are bizarre and spooky. The year is 1937, and while the situation in Europe is extremely tense, there’s an exuberant atmosphere in the dining car of a train on its way to Moscow. German, Russian, and Latvian are spoken, there are toasts to brotherhood as delicious food and drinks are served. The Latvian actor Maria Leiko, whose life provides a loose basis for the film, is sitting alone at a table. After celebrating success in several German silent films, the avowed socialist is heading back to her homeland after the Nazi’s seizure of power. Shot in razor-sharp black and white, the film adopts the phantasmagorical aesthetic of German Expressionism. Once in Moscow, Maria takes in the child of her deceased daughter and joins a Latvian theatre ensemble. Even though she soon recognises the horrors of Stalinist totalitarianism, she falls back on a position as an apolitical artist – yet her silence makes her vulnerable and open to attack.