‘Silent Rebellion’ review: A young woman learns to find her voice in 1940s rural Switzerland

Dir: Marie-Elsa Sgualdo. Switzerland/Belgium/France. 2025. 96mins

Switzerland, 1943. Fifteen year old Emma (Lila Gueneau) and her two younger sisters live with her father, her mother having been banished from the village for infidelity. When a sexual assault leaves Emma pregnant, she must navigate the restrictive social and religious mores of her rural Protestant community, and her own repressed emotions. This beautifully shot, low-key French-language drama revolves around Gueneau’s restrained, emotionally intelligent performance, which takes an introspective, lyrical approach to a sadly familiar story.

Shaped by ideas of consent, responsibility and autonomy

Premiering in Venice Spotlight, Silent Rebellion is an auspicious debut from Swiss filmmaker Marie-Elsa Sgualdo whose short films have played in festivals including Cannes Directors Fortnight and Locarno. That powerful central turn by Gueneau (the breakout star of 2024 Cannes title Eat The Night) and sensitive treatment of an evergreen subject should see it travel to further festivals, and arthouse distribution across Europe is a distinct possibility; it will be released in Italy by Trent Film and Benelux by Imagine.

Fittingly for this time and place, teenage Emma is an upstanding, innocent young woman – when we first meet her, she is considered the favourite to receive the village’s virtue award (which comes with a prize of virginal white linens and a small cash endowment, which usually goes to the recipients father or husband.) Emma is a diligent housekeeper for the local Pastor Robert (Gregoire Colin) but makes no secret of her dreams of becoming a nurse, and looks on in envy as the pastor’s daughter Colette (Sasha Gravat) studies at the kitchen table. When handsome young journalist Louis (Cyril Metzger) visits, he brings fresh air into the stuffy home, dancing to the radio and taking the family for romps in the countryside.

It’s in this beautiful, bucolic setting that an unexpected kiss from Louis turns quickly – shockingly quickly – into rape, which leaves Emma traumatised and pregnant. As with the rest of the film, the assault itself is filmed with great care, close-ups on Emma’s frightened eyes, her hands clutching at the grass, making clear that, while she stays silent, she is in no way consenting to what is happening to her. Indeed, the screenplay from Sgualdo and Nadine Lamari, which sets this deeply intimate story against the background of the Second World War as experienced in a neutral country, is shaped by ideas of consent, responsibility and autonomy: individual, communal and global.

The rural Swiss setting is undeniably stunning, and DOP Benoit Dervaux shoots it with a gauzy almost romantic lens that’s at odds with the action playing out against it; the suppression of women by a conservative patriarchal society, the rounding up of German refugees by the border guards as locals turn a blind eye. Pastor Robert is incensed, driven to drink, by his country’s lack of action and intolerance.

Similarly, Emma is devastated by the lack of support and options open to her – after attempting to abort the pregnancy (another difficult, well-handled scene) she embarks upon a loveless marriage with border guard Paul (Thomas Doret) in an attempt to stave off any shameful accusations. She quickly realizes, however, that she cannot be happy in this life, and decides to put herself first; she makes these decisions without fuss or fanfare but they are seismic in what they represent.

Throughout, Gueneau portrays Emma as a stoic, necessarily taciturn young woman buoyed by the multitudes beneath her surface. Emma is silenced by traditions and unspoken laws, and certainly has no-one in whom to confide, and so Gueneau expresses her character’s anger, desperation and, eventually, revelation through her stormy eyes, the fierce cleaning of spoons, the wonderment on her face – which is often filmed in tight close-up – as she listens, for the first time, to classical music. And when, at film’s end, Emma is finally able to let loose and enjoy a night of dancing, we realise that her bright yellow dress is the first time we have seen her wear any real colour – and it’s certainly the first time we have seen her truly smile.