The Silence of the Poet

Das Schweigen des Dichters

This drama comes from one of Germany's greatest contemporary directors, Peter Lilienthal; and is one of the few to be released outside of the country. It is the story of an Israeli poet's struggle to create in an inhospitable environment. The poet is suffering from severe writer's block and much of the film centers upon the reasons why. Among those reasons is a brother blinded during the Yom Kippur War, the drawn out illness and subsequent death of his wife, and the simpleton son she bore before she became ill. Most of the time the poet blames his son for his inability to write; the father resents having to care for him night and day but he refuses to institutionalize the lad.