Silence is golden


About 75 minutes in to this film, there is a scene where Sophie Okenado's character calls for a two minute pause, to think about the decision they are about to make.

The film then actually takes the two minutes, during which there is no noise, apart from breathing, and the camera lingers on close ups of faces, capturing the light from the window...

In a fairly good (7/10) film, this was an extraordinary moment, one of pure and escalating tension, almost a piece of genius filmmaking. The stress that the actors (both literally and the characters as actors) brought into this two minutes was palpable, and by the end of it, I was really wound up too. My own breathing seemed to fill the whole room around me. I'm really impressed. As I said, I'd been quite enjoying this, but this unexpected scene really floored me.

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