Review: Voice of Silence (2020), Blurs the Line Between Good and Evil

“Name me the movies that featured ‘cleaners’.”

“Léon…. Nikita… there’s another… wait a second… John Wick.”

That’s the type of conversations my better half and I have in the car while driving to and from our usual movie dates. I got to hand it to her in that I don’t even need to explain the concept of cleaners in movies (not just the hitman but also the clean-up crew) and I have the utmost respect for her when she exclaimed “Léon” and not “The Professional”.

Ever since Nikita (1990), I have been fascinated by this necessary subset of the criminal underground, the cleaners. You can’t just have the assassin go round piling up bodies and not think about who does the cleaning up to the point that nobody suspects it was a place of uber-violence? John Wick (2014) furthers the concept and adds a sleek freshness. It is high time somebody actually makes a movie about the cleaners, the criminals’ unsung heroes and the unseen extension of the crime syndicates. Voice of Silence is about a pair of cleaners, but unfortunately I am still waiting for a better movie that showcases these professional cleaners. This ain’t it.

Tae-in (Yoo Ah-in), a mute and Chang-bok (Yoo Jae-myung) work as the clean-up crew for a crime organisation. Things are going like clockwork until their client wants a favour from them: they need to take care of an eleven year-old kidnapped girl Cho-hee (Moon Seung-ah), while the ransom is being negotiated. But all the pretty plans go awry when the next body they are getting rid of is the kidnapper’s.

Dark comedy is tricky business; it’s not just about taking a taboo and morbid subject and making it funny, it has to be grounded in some sort of truthfulness within the characters. Dark humour should come from characters in an organic manner. If done well, it can be wickedly funny without sacrificing the characters’ humanity.

On paper, the premise of Voice of Silence is ripe for dark comedy, nothing beats laughing in the face of impending death. But the story makes a number of odd choices in both its narrative as well as its human logic aspects. Show me an eleven year-old girl who isn’t afraid of dead bodies and copious blood, and I would eat a tuft of hair. Frankly, I just can’t buy into how Tae-in and Chang-bok are such bumbling amateurs in their dealings with the crime syndicate in that they are constantly being used and manipulated. A little back story of how they come into this dark business would have helped me get behind them, but there isn’t. It was amateur hour for a pair of lovable fools who clean up scenes of crime. But what do I know? Voice of Silence is nominated for Best Film, Best New Director (Hong Eui-jeong), Best Screenplay and Best Actor (Yoo Ah-in) at the 41st Blue Dragon Film Awards.

For mainly the reasons stated above, I watch the proceedings of Voice of Silence at arm’s length, not fully invested in the characters and the story. Acting-wise, I already know prior to watching the movie I will be in for a good time. This year I have seen Yoo Jae-myung in Reply 1988, Prison Playbook and Itaewon Class, and in all his roles his characters are always distinctly delineated with each other. In fact, my wife had to tell me the villain in Itaewon Class is the father in Reply 1988. That’s the hallmark of a great actor – when you can’t see remnants of past characters he had played in his present one. Yoo Ah-in, I have seen what he is capable of in the excellent Burning (2018) and here he furthers the craft in a role with no speaking lines. His feelings are laid bare, saying so much without uttering a word. He absolutely deserves his Best Actor nomination.

Voice of Silence also makes for an interesting case study of the Stockholm Syndrome in that Cho-hee is allowed to feel needed and dared I say appreciated in a unique home environment. There is a little back story to her that gives credence to why she behaves in this manner, and it is heartwarming to see her being an older sister to Tae-in’s young sister and keeping the ramshackle home in order. It is this unusual relationship between Cho-hee and Tae-in that I feel is the beating heart of the story. But yet, late in the last act, Cho-hee makes an odd choice in character motivation that had me sighing in disappointment.

Voice of Silence is a story of characters making bizarre choices that mars the flow of good storytelling. It may have done enough to blur the lines between the good and the bad in humanity, but the out-of-turn choices made by the characters bring a degree of unreality to the proceedings that deflate any suspense. And I really have to say this last bit – depending on your predilection for story endings, you will either think of this as poetry in motion or a tight slap in the face. It was the latter for me.

Written by Daniel Chiam