THE QUIET ROOM Australia

Rolf de Heer’s audacious new film takes
the viewer into the mind of a 7-year-old
girl whose parents are separating. This is
an interior picture in more ways than one.
Most of the action takes place in two
rooms, the brightly painted bedroom of an
unnamed girl and the bedroom of her parents
next door. When her parents talk to
her, the girl remains silent but answers
them in her thoughts. This is achieved by
means of voice-over, which is extremely
effective in allowing the viewer to enter the
girl’s world. She longs to leave the city
and live in the country where, she has
been told, she can have the dog for which
she yearns. But most of all, she longs for
her mother and father to stop their quarreling
and return to the way things were.
-David Stratton, Variety