Is muteness more cinematic (as in a return to the virtues of silent cinema)?
3 examples of male muteness in film:
There's the Alan Arkin character in The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter.
In the Greek/German co-production Donusa (1992), a romantic drama about a German photographer visiting a remote Greek island and falling in love with one of the local women, there's a mute shepherd in a strong supporting role. His silence functions as a sort of analogy of the difficult communication between different cultures.
In Tarkovsky's Andrei Rublev, the title character remains mute during much of the narrative, a silence he chooses to repent for having killed a Tartar during a battle. When he does speak again, towards the end of the film, this coincides with his return to painting, with the film's dramatic shift to the colours of his triptych at the end.
H
There are some mute men out there; there's the Liam Neeson character in Suspect (1987), and there's Chan-wook Park's Sympathy for Mr Vengeance whose main character is deaf-mute. But can we necessarily talk about muteness, male or female, in cases where communication takes place through sign language?
I agree that it feels like a gendered issue. On the subject of voluntary (semi-)muteness, there is the example of the Korean character Sun in Lost, who speaks good English but can't admit to it for several episodes for fear of shaming her husband.
On that account, the only male mute I can think of is the main character in Kim Ki-Duk's Bin Jip. I'm curious if there are any other.