The ongoing French Film Festival kicked off at SMaison one overcast Saturday morning, and it was a wonderful way to highlight the high quality and diversity of the films assembled for this year’s edition. French Ambassador to the Philippines Marie Fontanel, SM Supermalls President Steven Tan, and French Embassy’s Martin Macalintal were on hand to open the media event - and to introduce this year’s special guest and ‘the Festival’s godmother,’ renowned French actress Emmanuelle Béart.

Un silence si bruyant (Such a Resounding Silence) would best be described as the passion project of Béart. It’s a documentary she created along with Anastasia Mikova, and it dares to unveil the controversial subject of incest as it’s practiced in contemporary society. That it was being screened during the International Day to End Violence to Women and Children was not a coincidence at all, as it was being exhibited with the cooperation of a French non-government organization (NGO) that operates here in the Philippines and precisely offers support and shelter to those victimized by incest. 

The film is smartly directed and edited, showing the different guises under ​​which incest can operate in today’s world - and why it’s so easy to persist and operate under the proverbial radar. As Emmanuelle Béart succinctly remarked, while it is a taboo subject, it’s certainly not taboo to those who choose to commit it, but it’s still taboo for the victims to raise the alarm or talk about​ it.

The documentary runs for 90 minutes and mixes interviews, footage of the subjects, and relevant animation. Four main subjects come forward as having been victimized, and they’re an enlightening group that effectively dramatizes the diverse faces of incest and how it creates such severe psychological trauma for the victim.

A woman now dramatizes her experience as agitprop theater, mixing it with grim comedy. In her case, it was her grandfather who would regularly molest her as a child, and when she finally spoke out, she was slapped by the grandmother, and the whole family shunned her, shutting her out.. and shutting her up because it made her feel she was the one doing something wrong.

And then there was a surprise: a man in his 40s spoke about how he had been abused sexually by both his parents and how it was only now that he was speaking out and filing a case against them. He would recount bathroom scenes, being kissed on the mouth, and how videos of him completely naked were constantly being filmed. 

The mother of a 4-year-old girl then relayed how when the girl would visit the separated father, the child would come back with stories of how the father would give her baths but that it was ‘very different’, and he would touch those parts of her in a certain way. The mother was at least relieved that the daughter could discern between hygiene and washing with sexual overtures. 

Then, there was a middle-aged woman who had blocked it out completely, and it was only now that she allowed it to emerge. She had experienced all kinds of phobias, and the psychiatrist was relating these phobias as coping mechanisms for submerging the trauma.

For Béart herself, the film became a journey of discovery, as she reveals she also was a victim, and when talking to a specialist psychiatrist in the course of filming, she’s moved to tears, recounting how so much of what he’s describing was reflective of her coping with the experience.

At the Festival’s opening media event, SM Supermalls President Steven Tan, with Ambassador Marie Fontanel and Martin Macalintal of the French Embassy.

The documentary is painfully honest, doesn’t flinch, and provokes without resorting to melodrama or heavy proselytizing. It just states its case with admirable restraint and makes its point for anyone watching, with enough sense between their ears. That the problem also exists here in the Philippines should spur us to catch this documentary during the ongoing Festival. There is always an alarming number of adolescent pregnancies that find root in incest, and it makes us worry even more about those who are taken advantage of at a younger pre-puberty age. 

The French Film Festival runs until Dec. 3, showing films at the SM MOA and SM Megamall cinemas.