Venice 2024 review: Quiet Life (Alexandros Avranas)

“A film that tonally holds the middle between a domestic family drama and a sinister satire.”

Natalia (Chulpan Khamatova) and Sergei (Grigoriy Dobrygin) have fled their native Russia with their children Katja (Miroslava Pashutina) and Alina (Naomi Lamp) after Sergei, a dissident critical of the powers that be, was attacked by state police and narrowly escaped death while his youngest, Katja, was in the backseat. They settled in Sweden and are now obediently awaiting the decision on their asylum application. They comply with all the rules given to them, suffer through regular demeaning house investigations, and all the time diligently work their jobs and learn the language. When their application is denied because the Swedish authorities find the proof of the attack insufficient, even if Sergei can show them the scar from where the knife went in, Katja can no longer bear the stress and falls into a catatonic state. While this allows Sergei and Natalia to stay in the country longer, it also puts them in a Kafkaesque clinical system where they are taught to be happy and peaceful around their daughter because this might get Katja out of her comatose state sooner. While the couple gets covert help from a sympathetic nurse (Eleni Roussinou) and Samaritan locals, the two instruct Alina to take over Katja’s story and strengthen their asylum bid. But this will have unexpected and catastrophic consequences.

Child Resignation Syndrome is an unrecognized psychiatric condition that introduces a state of unresponsiveness, mainly observed in children and adolescents from the former Soviet Union and Yugoslavia. The syndrome has been a hotly debated topic in Sweden, where the phenomenon has mostly been observed; since the late 1990s hundreds of cases have been documented. The hypothesis is that the stress and trauma of the asylum process and the fear of being sent back to their native country has such a negative influence on the children that they become catatonic. While not officially recognized by the World Health Organization, Swedish authorities do recognize the condition and have extended asylum to parents on the basis of it, leading to accusations of opponents that parents force their kids to fake the condition just so they can stay in the country.

This fascinating topic forms the basis for Alexandros Avranas’ fifth feature Quiet Life, a film that tonally holds the middle between a domestic family drama and a sinister satire. The film leaves little to the imagination when it comes to Avranas’ own position in the debate, which omits the fact that the condition is not officially recognized and even papers over the existence of a debate at all. But that doesn’t prevent the film from being a strong entry in Venice’s Orizzonti section, a bit of a puzzling placement since Avranas is an established name whose second film Miss Violence was in competition on the Lido in 2013 (he even nabbed the Best Director award). Avranas’ rigid formalism is a perfect match for the draconian asylum system that refugees have to find their way through. His predominantly static shots of cold, impersonal office spaces, peopled with neutrally clad and equally impersonal investigative officers who follow procedure to the letter and are unwavering when faced with any sort of human emotion, at times reach such a level of absurdity that the film becomes darkly comical. Add a bit of color and this could be the latest Jessica Hausner film. It is due to the performances by Dobrygin and especially Khamatova that Quiet Life still has a beating human heart at the film’s core. As the film progresses and Natalia and Sergei have gone through several emotional wringers (a course on learning how to smile around their catatonic child is especially befuddling), it is the love for their children that keeps them going, and both actors play this with conviction. Of the younger actors Lamp has the most to work with given that her ‘film sister’ is mostly in a coma, and a grueling interrogation that ends in tears is a showcase for Lamp’s talent, convincingly pulling her Alina through a range of emotions.

Despite the film’s strength as a family drama, Quiet Life‘s strongest suit is its rigid approach to portraying Sweden’s asylum process, both visually and in the disturbingly robotic and inhuman execution of it by the nameless characters on screen. By using very precise compositions and carefully arranged environments that lack any personality, and by keeping it almost completely devoid of music, Avranas manages to create an almost Stepford-like tone that underlines a rigid and impersonal system with a built-in hostility and suspicion. A system that should be helping vulnerable people, but instead treats the Natalias and Sergeis that show up on Sweden’s doorstep as if they are criminals to be mistrusted, or children that need to be kept in line and given a slap on the wrist if they ever step out of it. Avranas is rather obvious in his critique of this draconian system that has wrung out its last drop of humanity, but the way he applies the cinematic tools at his disposal to render it shows the hand of a confident director with a clear vision. It may make Quiet Life a film that keeps its audience at arm’s length, but also one that makes its message resonate and shows that humanity in the end conquers all.

(c) Image copyright: Les Films du Worso