Silent Light (Stellet Licht) is the sort of movie that can prompt a mixed response from one person. The film, a meditation on love, duty and spirituality, is sometimes utterly engaging -- and at other times hugely self-conscious.

The movie begins at daybreak, with the sun rising in what feels like real time and accompanied by the sounds of birds, insects and animals. The pace of the film is immediately unsettling, as is no doubt the intention.

Here are Johan (Cornelio Wall Fehr) and his wife Esther (Miriam Toews), sitting and saying grace -- silently -- at breakfast with their many children. This is a Mennonite community located near

Chihuahua, Mexico; Silent Light appears to unfold in a way that is as plain and spare and unadorned as the world Johan and Esther live in.

Unvarnished emotion, however, yields surprisingly complicated results.

Johan sits and weeps alone at the table after his wife and children have left the room. He has fallen in love with another woman in the community, and he cannot sort out which way his future lies. He has determined not to see Marianne (Maria Pankratz) again, but he can't stay away. His wife, Esther, knows all about the affair. Johan has no desire to break up his family or disappoint his children, but the real problem is that he loves his wife and Marianne both. What's a guy to do?

He visits his aged father and asks for advice. Part of the emotional struggle for Johan is his belief that Marianne might well be the woman he is fated to love. Johan wonders if it's all God's doing. His father fears it might be the work of the enemy -- the Devil. His father also offers a sobering dismissal of romantic love.

Silent Light has fascinating details of the characters' everyday life, from the sounds of cows being milked to the sight of Johan and Esther washing their children in the river. The surface of the film is so bland and quiet, but the emotion just beneath is explosive. Neither Johan nor Esther can live with the anguish they experience.

Silent Light continues on its strange and magical course, eventually becoming quite dream-like in the way that matters are resolved.

This movie won the Cannes Jury Prize in 2007, and it has also won five Ariel Awards in Mexico, that country's equivalent of the Oscars. The film is visually amazing, and it's not surprising that one of the Ariels was for cinematography.

The movie was cast with non-professional, Mennonite actors from Mexico, Russia and Canada, which helps explain what award-winning Canadian novelist Miriam Toews, who is of Mennonite descent, is doing in a leading role.

Silent Light is in Plautdietsch (also called Mennonite Low German) with English subtitles.

(This film is rated PG)

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