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This second feature film by Anne Claire Poirier (her first Before the Time Comes, is a fine study of a woman's decision about whether to have an abortion), centres on a woman who is making a film about a rape. The woman sits with her editor discussing the scenes running through an editing machine, and from this emerges a film and a film within a film which can only provoke the spectator into serious concern for this subject.
"Starting with a brutally realistic rape, shot in almost porno-movie style, the film proceeds to analyse the effect of rape on the victim. The narrative of the film is intercut with the director and editor discussing the form of the content and whether it could be considered erotic by male viewers. Also the film is intercut with clips revealing other aspects of female sexual abuse from clitoral ablations in Africa to child molestation in Montreal. Although some might find its novel style off-putting, A Scream from Silence is a striking condemnation of the physical dominance of men over women and rape within and without marriage."
Ronnie Saunders, The Irish Times.