Bresson: "Le silence est une présence, non une absence."
Modern culture is terrified of quiet, the way an unfaithful partner is terrified of an empty room — in the silence, the truth becomes audible. Ozu understood this before anyone named it: Tokyo Story opens on a river, a train, an old couple folding laundry, four minutes with no dialogue, camera fixed at tatami height. In that silence you learn fourty years of a marriage.