The Quietest Sound

A review from City Pages (Minneapolis)

Twin Cities-based director James Vculek’s indie psychodrama sucks you in from the get-go. The first shot is the view of a police interrogation room as seen through a surveillance camera; the subject is the worn and devastated-looking Elizabeth (Catherine E. Johnson), whose young daughter was, she says, abducted days before from a Wal-Mart and hasn’t been seen since. For the next 70 minutes, we see a single continuous shot of Elizabeth, who seems to be unreasonably persecuted by an off-camera good-cop/bad-cop tag team (Michael Tezla and Chris Carlson) – until discrepancies pile up in Elizabeth’s story, and the interrogators begin to pursue an entirely different agenda. Johnson is totally commanding as the desperate young mother, revealing flashes of paranoia and evasiveness behind convincing despair. Towards the end of the proceedings, a mysterious videotape arrives, and Elizabeth’s mental labyrinth begins to unravel. Yet just when the police (and those in the audience) think they’ve solved the puzzle, a final twist appears to recast all that came before in a completely, tragically unexpected light. The Quietest Sound is a spare, Spartan little film, tough as nails in its way and as fascinating as it is discomfiting. I haven’t seen it with an audience, but I can imagine the collective gasp that runs through the room as Vculek reveals his final, totally silent frames. – Quinton Skinner