At the beginning of its development and all way up to the 30's of the last century, film itself was exclusively a visual medium, but nowadays it seems that the might of visuality plays a secondary role, leaving the way to domination of words in the form of dialogues. Even more than that; in the eyes of common audience, hungry for entertainment, films without dialogues seem to be unattractive, boring and outdated. Maybe we are already too accustomed to movies with the endless chain of dialogues and rapid verbal bombs, so we do not even know any more how to enjoy the full visual experience.

But image itself is sometimes more powerful than words, and it has been demonstrated with a collection of four short movies of local »amateur« filmmaker Goran Ajtič; the collection is titled »Thriller without words«. This is exactly the case in whole of this matter; four stories, where narrating rests in the hands of the images, supported by different colour filters and by minimalistic music. Well, let's take these films one by one; the first short film »Agony« represents, on the symbolic level, the internal struggle of the main heroine, who floats between salvation and self-destruction (suicide), »The Nightmare« offers a very creepy vision of the mare itself, which is obviously the product of the individual's depressed frustration, »The Visitor« is – comparing it with the previous two – the most »accessible« with a simple story about a seemingly perfect love, which ends with the murder and the intrusion of supernatural, while slightly longer gothic thriller »The Face of Evil« portrays a group of young people who settle in the old castle waiting for a joyfull and careless evening of pure enjoying; however, in the presence of »evil« all the events change quickly and they escalate into the bloody mixture of decadence, sexuality, and violence.

In all four presented films Ajtič is fascinated by exploring the boundaries between reality and gloomy fantasy, which leads his heroes and heroines to the pure and bitter end. The films are – as already tell us the words of the film's titles themselves – the mixture of different genres, of psychological horror film, of atmospheric thriller and surrealistic drama, where elements of the supernatural invade into the lifes of the protagonists so often, that they became a kind of integral part, or something that exists only inside of a kind of pervert harmony. Occasionally can occur (intentionally or not, this is up to you to decide) associations to some of the cult horror films such as »The Shining«, »Salo« and »Nosferatu«, but this does not mean that Ajtič is not an original author. A »Thriller without words« is a guerrilla-style, a raw, brutal, and several times even provocative collage of short films, showing us that a good product doesn't necessaryly needs an ultra-quality of film equipment; it is primarily the important content which Ajtič transforms into a unique way without serving or satisfying the general public taste. Of course, these four film creations may be hard to watch for a common audience, yet their strength lies in the images, symbolically not quite complicated, but at the same time still powerful enough to offer its true essence. A »welcome spirit« of old times, when the film itself still used to serve its pure purpose.

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Film je bil na začetku razvoja pa vse tja do 30. let prejšnjega stoletja izključno vizualni medij, dandanes pa se zdi, da vse pogosteje izgublja stik s svojimi koreninami in dopušča popolno prevlado besed v obliki dialogov. Še več; filmi brez dialogov so za širše občinstvo postali neprivlačni, dolgočasni in zastareli. Mogoče smo gledalci že preveč navajeni na filme z neskončno verigo dialogov in hitrih verbalnih bombic, da sploh ne znamo več uživati v popolni vizualni izkušnji.

Da je podoba včasih močnejša od besed, dokazuje tudi zbirka štirih kratkih filmov domačega “amaterskega” filmarja Gorana Ajtiča z naslovom Triler brez besed. In točno za to se tudi gre pri celi zadevi; štiri zgodbe, kjer je pripovedništvo v rokah podob, različnih barvnih filtrov in minimalistične glasbe. Pa pojdimo po vrsti; prvi kratki film Agony na simbolični ravni predstavlja notranji boj glavne junakinje, ki niha med odrešitvijo in destrukcijo (samomor), The Nightmare je srhljiv prikaz nočnih mor, ki so zgolj produkt posameznikovih potlačenih frustracij, The Visitor je od vseh filmov še najbolj “dostopen” s preprosto zgodbo o navidez popolni ljubezni, ki se konča z umorom in vdorom nadnaravnega, nekoliko daljša gotska srhljivka Obraz zla pa v ospredje postavlja skupino mladih ljudi, ki se naseli v starem gradu na neobremenjenem večeru druženja in popivanja, vendar se ob prisotnosti “zla” dogajanje hitro spremeni v krvavo mešanico dekadence, spolnosti in nasilja.

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