A Question of Silence

Three strangers brutally murder the inoffensive manager of an Amsterdam boutique, but the case is less straightforward than it seems. Told in flashback via the investigation of a criminal psychiatrist brought in to certify insanity, the film convincingly shows the motive behind the killing as intolerable male oppression of various kinds, the twist in this thriller/courtroom drama being that the muggers - and their psychiatrist - are very ordinary women and their victim a man. The story is told with an astonishing assurance and visual flair that belie the small budget and debutant director Gorris' lack of experience. Her feminism is uncompromising, but of a disarmingly undogmatic kind. The result is at once accessible and deeply unsettling: the upbeat ending, for instance, has the male way of looking at the world literally laughed out of court, with a cathartic laughter that explodes out of the women's earlier silent isolation, and goes on echoing long after the film is over.