--- title: "A Question of Silence" year: 1982 kind: "film" canonical: "https://film.one/film/a-question-of-silence" fi1m_id: "a-question-of-silence" imdb_id: "tt0086369" tmdb_id: 96529 wikidata_id: "Q12126998" fi1m_score: 79 critics_reviews: 1 published: "2026-09-26T00:56:12.204545+00:00" updated: "2026-09-26T00:56:23.609339+00:00" region: "HU" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # A Question of Silence (1982) Directed by Marleen Gorris · 1h 32m · Drama, Crime ## Identity A Question of Silence - **Canonical:** https://film.one/film/a-question-of-silence - **Type:** Film - **Fi1m ID:** a-question-of-silence - **IMDb ID:** tt0086369 - **TMDB ID:** 96529 - **Wikidata ID:** Q12126998 - **Same entity:** https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086369/, https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/96529, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q12126998 **Fi1m score: 79** · Critics: 1 of 6 reviews so far *In a sentence:* The women say nothing, the men talk constantly, and nobody hears a word > Marleen Gorris’s first film is a courtroom drama that will not argue its case in court. Three strangers kill a shopkeeper and a psychiatrist tries to find out why. It is plainly made, occasionally as blunt as a pamphlet, and still able to make a room uncomfortable. ## Synopsis In the Netherlands, three women who have never met walk into a dress shop on the same afternoon and kill the man who owns it. Christine M. (Edda Barends) is a housewife who has stopped speaking. Annie (Nelly Frijda) is a café waitress who never stops. Andrea (Henriëtte Tol) is a secretary who is cleverer than the men she works for and knows it. None of them denies what happened and none will say why. Janine van den Bos (Cox Habbema), a court-appointed psychiatrist, is asked to decide whether they are fit to stand trial. She visits them in prison, listens, takes notes, and goes home each evening to her husband Ruud (Eddie Brugman), a lawyer, who is sure the answer is obvious. ## Review Marleen Gorris wrote and directed *A Question of Silence* in 1982, and it is her first film. The setup is a crime picture turned inside out. We know who did it from the start: Christine M. (Edda Barends), a housewife; Annie (Nelly Frijda), a waitress; Andrea (Henriëtte Tol), a secretary. We know what they did, which was to kill the owner of a dress shop, together, without having met before that afternoon. What we do not know is why, and neither does Janine van den Bos (Cox Habbema), the psychiatrist sent to find out whether they are sane enough to be tried. Hans van Dongen’s editing does most of the structural work. The film moves between Janine’s prison interviews and short pieces of the women’s lives before the shop: Christine at a kitchen table with small children while her husband walks past without a word; Annie behind a counter being talked at by customers; Andrea in a meeting, making a suggestion that is ignored and then repeated by a man and accepted. The shop itself comes back in fragments, a rail of dresses, a hand on a sleeve, and the full scene is kept from us for a long while. Frans Bromet shoots all of this flat and unfussy, in the even light of Dutch television drama, and that plainness is the right choice. The boutique is bright and lined with mirrors; the interview rooms are grey and bare; the van den Bos house is comfortable and lit like a catalogue. Jany Temime’s costumes let us tell the three women apart before they speak, Christine in a shapeless housecoat, Annie in her work apron and a cardigan, Andrea in the suits of a woman who is paid less than she is worth. When the killing is finally shown, it horrified us, and not because of what is on screen, which is not much. It is the calm that does it. Nobody runs, nobody shouts, the women do not look at one another, and the whole thing has the pace of shoppers deciding on a blouse. We sat very still and were aware of doing so. Gorris has understood that the most frightening violence on film is the kind that looks like an ordinary task. The performances are uneven in a way that suits the material. Barends does almost nothing and holds the screen by refusing to give Janine, or us, a single usable expression. Frijda’s Annie is the film’s only comedy, loud and unembarrassed, and her interviews are the ones we looked forward to. Tol plays Andrea as the brain of the piece, answering each of the psychiatrist’s questions with a better question. Habbema, though, is the one carrying it. Janine begins certain and professional, and over the film her certainty comes apart, mostly at her own dinner table, where Brugman’s Ruud explains her case to her every evening and she gradually stops replying. The film’s weakness is that its men are one man. The prosecutor (Erik Plooyer), the judge (Hans Croiset), the inspector (Kees Coolen), Andrea’s employers and Christine’s husband are all condescending in the same key, and none is allowed a decent minute. Gorris would say that is the point, and in 1982 she had reason to make it loudly. It still costs the film something. A drama with only one side is a speech, and there are stretches here, especially in the flashbacks, where the speech is delivered twice in case we missed it the first time. Most critics have been cooler on the film than we are, and we suspect this is where they part from us; we think the boutique scene and Habbema’s slow unravelling buy the film the right to its bluntness. Gorris went on to make *Antonia’s Line* (1995), which is warmer and more forgiving. This is the angrier film and, we think, the more interesting one. It borrows the shape of the courtroom picture and then declines to stage the trial as a contest, because it does not believe the contest is fair. We will not describe how it ends. Watch it with someone you are prepared to disagree with, because you will, and the film is counting on it. *Fi1m score 79, published 26 September 2026.* ## Straight answers **Is A Question of Silence worth watching?** *A Question of Silence* is worth watching for anyone with patience for a plain, angry drama that refuses to argue its case in the usual courtroom way, and we scored it 79. Cox Habbema's psychiatrist, slowly losing her certainty, and one very calm killing carry it. Its men are all written in the same condescending key, and the flashbacks tend to say things twice. **How long is A Question of Silence, and what is it rated?** *A Question of Silence* runs 1h 32m. It is a drama and crime film. **Where can I watch A Question of Silence in Hungary?** *A Question of Silence* is not on any streaming or rental service in Hungary at the moment. It is available in 4 other countries; change your country at the top of the page to see where. Availability is checked daily. **How violent or frightening is A Question of Silence, and is it suitable for children?** *A Question of Silence* has no certificate in the UK or the US, and it is not a film for children, though it shows little. The killing of the shopkeeper is seen late and briefly, with almost nothing graphic on screen; what disturbs is how calm and ordinary it looks. Teenagers and adults will find it unsettling rather than frightening, and the rest is talk in prison rooms and kitchens. **How does A Question of Silence compare to Thelma & Louise?** *A Question of Silence* and [*Thelma & Louise*](https://film.one/film/thelma-and-louise) both put women's anger at men on screen, but the Dutch film is the colder and plainer of the two, while Scott's is a funny, moving road picture. Both write their men crudely; Sarandon and Davis give the American film a friendship to warm it, whereas Gorris's three strangers barely look at one another. Gorris's is the more uncomfortable, Scott's the easier to return to. **What should I watch after A Question of Silence?** After *A Question of Silence*, try [*Thelma & Louise*](https://film.one/film/thelma-and-louise) (1991, Fi1m 85): Two women, one gun, and an America that keeps proving them right about it. Then [*Anatomy of a Fall*](https://film.one/film/anatomy-of-a-fall) (2023, Fi1m 86): A woman on trial, a marriage taken apart in court, and no easy verdict offered. ### Reviews we read (1) - **Time Out**, SJo (64/100, inferred): The page identifies this as a review of the 1982 film, but the review text is unavailable. Its verdict and any specific praise or complaint therefore cannot be determined. [Read](https://www.timeout.com/movies/a-question-of-silence) ## Details - **Director:** Marleen Gorris - **Director:** Marleen Gorris - **Screenplay:** Marleen Gorris - **Cinematography:** Frans Bromet - **Editor:** Hans van Dongen - **Music:** Lodewijk De Boer, Martijn Hasebos - **Costume design:** Jany Temime - **Producer:** Matthijs van Heijningen - **Cast:** Edda Barends as Christine M.; Nelly Frijda as Annie; Henriëtte Tol as Andrea; Cox Habbema as Janine van den Bos; Eddie Brugman as Ruud van den Bos (as Eddy Brugman); Hans Croiset as Judge; Erik Plooyer as Prosecutor; Anna van Beers - **Runtime:** 1h 32m - **Release (Hungary):** 25 April 2005 - **Genres:** Drama, Crime ## Where to watch in Hungary Not streaming, renting or buying in Hungary at the last check. Also available in: CA, MX, PA, US. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country. ## If you liked this - *Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles* (1975): Three days of a widow’s routine, watched until the routine breaks; patient and pitiless. - *Antonia's Line* (1995): Gorris again, several generations of women on a farm, kinder and far more forgiving. - *Thelma & Louise* (1991), Fi1m 85: Two women, one gun, and an America that keeps proving them right about it. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/thelma-and-louise.md) - *Born in Flames* (1983): Rough, angry New York feminist science fiction made for almost nothing, and it shows, gloriously. - *Anatomy of a Fall* (2023), Fi1m 86: A woman on trial, a marriage taken apart in court, and no easy verdict offered. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/anatomy-of-a-fall.md) --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/film/a-question-of-silence