Mark Webber and his wife, Teresa Palmer, are bringing an epic film that explores life, death, and love to the 2019 Tribeca Film Festival. The Place of No Words stars Mark Webber and Teresa Palmer who play themselves in the film. Alongside the duo are also their real-life friends, Phoebe Tonkin (CW series The Originals), Eric Olsen (NCIS: Los Angeles) and his wife Sarah Wright Olsen (American Made).
However, the star of the film is Mark Webber and Teresa Palmer’s three-year-old son Bohdi Palmer. In the film, Bohdi experiences a hard time coming to terms with his father dealing with his father’s illness. Although not specified, Bohdi, Mark, and Teresa are all aware that this illness is life-threatening.
One day, a very inquisitive Bohdi asked his parents a complex question: “Where do we go when we die?”. This became the general theme of the film directed, written and produced by Webber. The Place of No Words follows the imaginative and exciting adventures of Bohdi and Webber as they try to come to mutual terms with his untimely death.
Death can be a sensitive topic to discuss because of its morbid premise; So, Webber wanted to create something that would ultimately cover the theory of life and its other aspect in an authentic but entertaining way. To do this, he uses his special technique which he likes to call “reality cinema”. Until his second self-directed film The End of Love, Webber has not realized that including his own family and friends in his films would essentially be a key element to his filmmaking. Now, they are included in everything he creates.
Bohdi and Teresa serve as Webber’s support system as he deals with his illness although Teresa is missing throughout most of the film as it focuses on Bohdi and her father’s bond. Bohdi has a vivid imagination and we begin to see just how vivid it really is when her father’s health starts to decline.
In her wild mind, her and her father trek through various landscapes in snow and rain in search of “Freacka Reecka, Sheaka Deaka”. The phrase was created by Bohdi herself and is often referenced throughout the film without much context behind the meaning of the made-up word. Perhaps, “Freacka Reecka, Sheaka Deaka” represents of the true meaning of life, or a bright light that finds a way to shine through the darkness that may consume us when dealing with grief.
Regardless of what the playful term may mean, there is no denying its powerful symbolism of something much deeper. Webber seems to leave that up to the viewers to interpret on their own.
Nevertheless, the father-daughter duo continues on their journey and run into a few friends along the way. Angels of all ages, colors, sizes, old witches preaching cryptic messages and huge, furry “monsters” are just a few of the beings that occupy the magical forest that Webber and Bohdi find themselves lost in. Their long trip finally ends when Bohdi stumbles upon a well in the middle of the forest, with a broken sign above it that reads “Freacka Reecka, Sheaka Deaka”.
The film analyzes life and all of the inevitable effects that come along with it: love, loss, grief, and death. It expands on the sensitive topic of death and how it is accepted, or not, by those who it may affect. It encourages self-reflection and inspires viewers to examine their own perception of loss, grief, death, life everything that comes with it, rather than telling them how they should feel about it.
So, where do we go when we die? Essentially, there are no right or wrong answers to this question and that is what makes the idea of the film so thought-provoking.
To find out more about Mark Webber and The Place of No Words, visit https://www.tribecafilm.com/festival.
