Friend opens with footage of a seed, bursting open and bringing forth shoots. It's a remarkable process, one that we take for granted in our more dynamic lives. Ildikó Enyedi's film operates in a similar way. Telling three stories that look and sound simple on the surface, each one branches out in unexpected ways, until all find their full expression in the shadow of a tall tree that's older than all of us.
Enyedi's latest film is an ambitious attempt to find common ground across time. It finds courage and calm in its central figure, namely a towering ginkgo biloba tree that stands in the grounds of a medieval German university town. This tree has stood for centuries, but while it remains anchored to its spot, the human world around the gingko rushes by. Silent Friend focuses on three stories taking place on this university campus. Though separated by decades and contexts, the characters in these stories all have one thing in common: they keep coming back to the gingko tree.
On the surface, the stories in Silent Friend share little beyond their location. From the opening shot of the sprouting seed, we cut to a baby whose head is covered in sensors. The little tyke is part of an experiment conducted by Professor Wong (Tony Leung Chiu-Wai), who has just moved to Germany to take up a new role. Alas, he's done so at the start of 2020, when the whole world is about to shut down in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. From there, we rewind almost 50 years, and in 1972 we meet Hannes (Enzo Brumm), a young man whose attraction to botany student Gundula (Marlene Burow) leads him to developing an interest in her work with geraniums.
Both stories feature academics and experiments, but their true connections are only revealed gradually. The gradual pace is underlined by a third story; in 1908, Grete (Luna Wedler) becomes the first female student in the college's history. Grete's story is captured in handsome black-and-white, and all three are shot in period-appropriate style by DoP Gergely Pálos, while Enyedi and editor Károly Szalai cut between the narrative strands elegantly, letting each unfold at a steady pace, daring the viewer to will them to some kind of deeper link.
Ironically, connection itself is one of the themes being explored while we look for the links between Silent Friend's narratives. As Wong deals with his newfound isolation in a strange land, and Grete battles the baked-in sexism of her new academic surroundings, they find themselves yearning for connection. The complexity of Enyedi's script is backed up with intelligence, as well as trust in the audience to follow the stories wherever they go. This means watching the characters finding connection in ways that transcend human experience. Wong and Grete find respite through technology (Zoom calls for him, the new novelty of photography for her), while Hannes finds his interactions with his plants becoming more rewarding than any human friendship. At various points, each of the three finds themselves in the shadow of the mighty gingko. At their quietest moments, each of the leads find mutual connection, whether they realize it or not.
Where Enyedi's most notable work, 2017's On Body and Soul, devolved from profundity to pretension with misplaced confidence, Silent Friend recognizes that it's trying to say a lot, and Enyedi allows herself and her audience to leave some thoughts incomplete. Some themes are expressed in abstractions that can frustrate; the metaphor of branches and roots as connections will always be obvious, especially when comparing such networks to the structures of the human brain. The film flirts with New Age sappiness, but keeps to the right side of whimsy. It helps that the cast is uniformly superb (though it could have used more Léa Seydoux, playing a researcher with whom Wong connects via Zoom in his isolation).
Silent Friend is a patient film about slow processes, but the viewer who accepts it on those terms will find riches in the depths it attempts to mine. It may not always be subtle, but it bubbles with emotional intelligence and superb craftsmanship.
Silent Friend screened as part of the Debate strand at the BFI London Film Festival 2025
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