From “Shining” to “False Semblants”, the fascinating image of twins has always seduced the 7th Art. This is still the case with the film “The Silent Twins” by Agnieszka Smoczynska, the 9th film in competition presented on Wednesday at the Deauville Festival.
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Cinema has always been able to exploit the fascinating image of twins on the big screen. Of shining from Stanley Kubrick to False pretenses from David Cronenberg to comedy Twins with Arnold Schwarzenegger and Dany De Vito, they frighten, amuse, disturb, in short leave no one indifferent and are good subjects for cinema.
This Wednesday morning September 7, it is an unknown true story of totally mute twins that the festival-goers were able to discover in Deauville, with the ninth film in competition. The Silent Twinsliterally the silent sisters, directed by the Polish Agnieszka Smoczynska will remain as one of the highlights of this 48th edition.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRpQ7Ouri8w
The film tells the incredible fate of Jennifer and June Gibbons, born in 1963 on the island of Barbados and who throughout their life in Wales, refused any communication with the outside world and even with their family. An inexplicable speech disorder despite the numerous treatments undergone and all the more strange since when they were reunited, the inseparable and fusional twins found the gift of speech. Marginal and solitary, they invented a parallel universe in their room and dreamed of becoming writers. They have also managed to publish some news. A bountiful imagination, but also violent behavior and mental disorders that led them to spend fourteen years in a psychiatric hospital.
This uniqueness gave the director the idea of adapting the book of a journalist from Sunday Times Marjorie Wallace who had first told their story, having met them many times. This gives an incredibly touching film because the filmmaker, without ever giving keys, manages to bring us into the imaginary world of these sisters. She achieves this thanks to modeling clay characters that come alive thanks to the “stop motion” process and allow us to approach the teeming imagination of June and Jennifer, locked in their world and their bubbles.
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“You will never be happy if you want to be alone”, repeat the two sisters who cannot imagine their existence far from each other despite many crises in this atypical “couple”. Ironically, it is while leaving their long internment that Jennifer dies suddenly in the car taking her home. His twin sister reportedly said a few days after the death: “I am finally free, liberated and Jennifer gave her life for me”. June Gibbons is now 59 years old. She now leads a quiet life, not far from her parents’ home in Wales.