Brilliantly posed, the Question of Silence found it's way into US theatres at a very appropriate moment.(1983) The lack of response in the US to this film revealed, to women who had worked through the agonies of trying to get men to "see" something other than their own vain point of view, the dense, monolithic proportion of hate and ignorance for women that most men men hold. The fact that the women characters consciously acknowledged the sense of humiliation that drove them to the rage that enabled them eviscerate the entrenched, historically priggish and stupid Man (the Shopkeeper) that they had endured through their own lives (and the lives of all women before them)made the POV in this film mind-boggling to most viewers. The arguments between the two lawyers (couple) and the disbelief of the Judges further proved the accuracy of the film's "take" on attitudes of men. Men who were in the Lumiere theatre when I saw it left mumbling to themselves. This film jolts people out of their ordinary positions on matters of conscience and action. In that respect alone, it is art of the best kind, the kind that stimulates the viewer to think anew. Not unlike Vagina Monologues in its power to shift awareness, this jewel should be kept in the public's eye by any means necessary.
Review of A Question of Silence
