Ever since its premiere at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival, Carlos Reygadas’s Silent Light has been discussed by many in the hushed tones usually reserved for decades-old canonical classics. Made at the beginning of his career, Reygadas’s 1999 short film Maxhumain doesn’t really resemble Silent Light in any way — it's a tiny, experimental, mixed-media dream about a young man's existential portent amid memories of his mother — but it does showcase the director's knack for creating drama even in the most unusual of circumstances. It's also a strange, somewhat opaque work — a good example of Reygadas’s inherent abilities, as well a reminder of how far he's come.

Related: David Edelstein on Silent Light