‘Silent City Driver’: Tallinn Review

Dir: Sengedorj Janchivdorj. Mongolia. 2024. 137mins

An alienated, broken man drives across the night-time thoroughfares of a metropolis that rejects him; his disgust with the corruption that stains the streets prompts him to hunt revenge. Whereas the premise of Mongolian director Sengedorj Janchivdorj’s brooding drama sounds just like that of Taxi Driver, this atmospheric, slow-burning story of a disenfranchised hearse-driver who finds it simpler to bond with canines than individuals is quietly compelling and wholly distinctive. The result’s a intentionally paced character examine that step by step peels again the layers to disclose Ulaanbaatar’s bleak and unwelcoming underbelly.

Quietly compelling and wholly distinctive

The newest movie from prolific Mongolian movie, tv and theatre director Janchivdorj, Silent Metropolis Driver follows his 2022 image The Gross sales Lady, which loved an intensive competition run, predominantly in Asian cinema-focused occasions and showcases. With its placing and sordidly lovely visuals, plus a robust central efficiency from Tuvshinbayar Amartuvshin because the mysterious and solitary Myagmar, Silent Metropolis Driver ought to no less than match The Gross sales Lady’s competition attain following its premiere in Tallinn, the place it gained the highest prize in the primary competitors and a nod for finest manufacturing design.

The movie’s design is deservedly highlighted. Shot in widescreen, with expressive (if minimal) use of color, the image condenses an entire sorry again story right into a panning shot round Myagmar’s wretched residence. An enthusiastic pack of ragged-looking canines greets Myagmar – a tough head and tail rely places Myagmar’s pet tally properly into double figures. He hacks up chunks of slimy meat for the animals because the digital camera fastidiously floats across the room, taking in a shrine to a long-dead mom, framed by black mould and resignation, and mildewed partitions that look as clammy and chilly as a cadaver.

It takes some time earlier than we be taught the reality about 32-year-old Myagmar’s life up till this level – he spent 12 years in jail for a homicide, a sentence that broke each his thoughts and his physique – however the transient moments we spend in his unsavoury room inform us that it is a man who has just about given up on human firm. 

This begins to alter when Myagmar begins his new job as a hearse-driver. Janchivdorj’s use of rhythms and visible repetition suggests a personality who prefers his days to lack surprises. When he finds himself sharing the hearse with a recent confronted 18-year-old monk who breaks the ice by sharing his sandwiches, Myagmar’s pure state of stony reserve begins to crack.

A talented stonemason and carpenter (these years in jail weren’t fully spent in useless), Myagmar is drawn to the workshop the place the bespoke coffins are crafted. There he meets one other outsider, a blind carpenter who recognises Myagmar from the truth that he smells of canines and who compliments him on his “succesful fingers”. The carpenter has a daughter, Saruul (Narantsetseg Ganbaatar), a younger girl who dutifully guides her father residence at evening on the bus, however who slips out within the night to work – we assume it’s intercourse work – within the metropolis’s sleazy neon-lit leisure quarter.

The darkness of this insalubrious evening time world is the type that weighs closely, that has the choking, smothering high quality of smoke. And Myagmar lurks in it, puffing countless cigarettes, successfully stalking the unwitting Saruul. It’s not probably the most promising begin to a friendship, however it does imply that Myagmar is there when Saruul, overwhelmed by a blackmailing lodge proprietor, wants assist. A tentative friendship develops, however Saruul’s disappointment and despair will not be one thing that Myagmar’s awkward adoration can repair.

This can be a visually placing image, however simply as efficient because the cinematography is the usage of music – a Serge Gainsbourg track is a repeated motif – and, notably, sound.