Silent Tongue (1993)

I love this movie so much

Absolutely Fantastic

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

For me, this was an exercise in torture. I found it to be pretentious. Waaaaaaay over the top dramatically. Repulsive to look at. Bad acting. Bad dialogue. Almost as bad as Buried Child. I was reminded of The Emperor's New Clothes. People really do like to think of themselves as sophisticated, don't they...... A root canal would have been less painful. Oh, I particularly enjoyed the use of fingernails. Made me crave a manicure.

A more sickening, film, with no plot, continuity, or even good acting I have never seen. It drags on and on. The premise of it is lost on any intelligent individual. If you have a need for electricity to flow through your TV set, then catch it when it shows. I do not know if you could even find it in a Video store, but if you do, you would have done better to give the money spent to rent it to the pan-handler outside. If you want Richard Harris, then watch a Man Called Horse. As far as River Phoenix is concerned, cannot see the fascination viewers have for him.

Sam Shepard, the writer/director of "Silent Tongue," is one of the big names in contemporary American theatre. So it comes as no surprise that his two feature films (also, "Far North") have a distinctly theatrical tone. General audiences may not have a taste for his style, but Shepard's films richly reward multiple viewings for the open-minded."Silent Tongue" is a ghost story which uncovers a disturbing sickness at the heart of the Old West. River Phoenix becomes mentally unhinged when his Native American bride dies in childbirth. This sends his father, Richard Harris, on a journey to try and find another woman for his son. Exhibiting tragically limited imagination, the father returns to the traveling circus where he traded horses for the first woman, and he attempt a second bargain for the woman's sister. In the end, the sister must confront the dead woman's ghost, and we learn the dark secret of their past.Phoenix is eerily convincing as the mad Talbot Roe, and Richard Harris is uncharacteristic low-key as the world-weary Prescott Roe. Dermot Mulroney, unable to make his character's diction convincing, is perhaps the film's only casting error.

This movie is about a man who neither speaks nor eats because his one-and-only love - his wife, died during childbirth. And now he is on the edge of insanity... It´s a powerful and moving film about love and freedom!!