Silent Light

Silent Light follows Johan, a Mennonite farmer in northern Mexico, who is married to Esther and father to seven children. For two years he has carried on a relationship with Marianne, and he confesses the situation to a friend and to his father, a preacher who believes his son has fallen under the devil's influence. Both men offer him support, pity and a measure of envy. The community's religious laws forbid unions outside the faith, and Johan finds himself unable to choose between the two lives open to him.

Carlos Reygadas wrote, directed and produced the film, which followed his earlier Battle in Heaven and was released in 2008, running 136 minutes. Cornelio Wall plays Johan, with Miriam Toews as Esther, Maria Pankratz as Marianne, Peter Wall as the preacher father and Jacobo Klassen and Irmo Thiessen in supporting roles. The production was a European and Mexican co-production.

Audience response has been favorable but not overwhelmingly so, with an IMDb rating of 7.2 from roughly 7,200 votes and a TMDB rating of 6.8 from a much smaller number of votes. A critics' rating of 8.1 from 27 reviews places professional assessments noticeably above the general audience scores.