Fest Track On Sirk TV Film Review: PROJECT SILENCE [Fantastic Fest 2023 - Austin, Texas]
The aspect of disaster movies is preventable action depending on how dire the circumstances are. With "Project Silence", building the structure in the dead of night with a heavy hitting fog on one of the biggest bridges in Korea should do it. That said, the concept sometimes overburdens itself with political intrigue beyond what is needed. The project around which Silence is based around involves animals, cloning and attack mechanisms which all become entangled when a large mass car wreck on the bridge occurs. The mechanics at the beginning of the film are done with quite exceptional precision especially when a certain aerial unit comes into play. Then as the blend of dramatic and comedic elements playing comes to bear it loses a bit of cadence. The main character story involves a security head Cha (played by Lee Sun-kyun --- who is also in "Sleep" and "Killing Romance" at Fantastic Fest) and his daughter who seemingly are on the way to the airport to send her to study abroad (her mother had died perhaps a year earlier). The facets of each and every person or group the film covers are meant to give a sense of relatability but, like some humor translating to the West, sometimes it is too dead on and corny whether it be a tow truck driver with an attitude and a small dog in tow or a young female golf pro and her best friend caddie who are too much BFFs to really have any boundaries.
The strategy of approaching the attacking contingent makes sense but the CG, while trying to be edgy and cool, borders between realistic and cartoonish, which is a tricky balance and most of the time doesn't work. The resolution, although morally right, doesn't seem that clean considering the basis of what just happened. The first act sets up a good premise, bathed in night, shot though mostly on a soundstage but with limited blood carnage per se to keep the story itself in check and not shift sympathy in too many directions. The concept and follow up through of sacrifice on all ends is maximized which prevents a connection from really forming. "Sleep" as a progression (since Lee was in that as well) used subtle human digs rather than big swings, though that was a more intimate story. This tends to place it too much on the head. Though the genre underpinnings are what we loved to see in Korean cinema (especially from the pros at CJ), "Project Silence" plays like a video game acted out, with some texture of loss but never quite creating a sense of dread even as its scope widens. C+
By Tim Wassberg
