Video review: YouTube - Land of Silence and Darkn...
Klassy discovered this in Movies
•2 reviews since Apr 26, 2008
movies, video, werner-herzog
•youtube.com/watch
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Klassy discovered 9 days ago- Having watched Herzog's Land of Silence and Darkness recently (just a couple of months ago), I guess I could describe what I like about Herzog's technique and stuff, but what I'm really obsessed with is the feeling of being able to read his thoughts when I watch his films, or the feeling that I am inhabiting his mind, looking through his odd monocular vision. Land of Silence and Darkness is a documentary about people who are blind and deaf, and it describes a kind of spectrum based on the characters' amount of contact with the world. Fini Straubinger, for instance, clasps people to her, laughs heartily, and animatedly signs onto people's palms. When she meets another blind-deaf woman, she writes "I am your sister in darkness" onto her hand. She hosts a party that culminates in her friends tentatively feeling their way through a cactus garden. On the other hand, this clip from the film shows a man who's been neglected his whole life and is living in a kind of feral, inchoate isolation. When someone gives him a radio for the first time, his face acquires a kind of focus. In the scene where he clasps the radio to his heart, I felt my own chest vibrating, too. It's so powerful, this scene. He's an eerie film subject to watch, since he has no idea that he's participating in a film. You know, speech is fine. I have a love-hate relationship with speech, the spoken word. But I've often wondered why all of us don't use hand signs and sign language on a regular basis, too.
It seems like it would be so lovely to trace alphabets onto another person's palm. Or tell a story on someone's thigh. Or write a sonnet on the sole of someone's foot.
- Having watched Herzog's Land of Silence and Darkness recently (just a couple of months ago), I guess I could describe what I like about Herzog's technique and stuff, but what I'm really obsessed with is the feeling of being able to read his thoughts when I watch his films, or the feeling that I am inhabiting his mind, looking through his odd monocular vision. Land of Silence and Darkness is a documentary about people who are blind and deaf, and it describes a kind of spectrum based on the characters' amount of contact with the world. Fini Straubinger, for instance, clasps people to her, laughs heartily, and animatedly signs onto people's palms. When she meets another blind-deaf woman, she writes "I am your sister in darkness" onto her hand. She hosts a party that culminates in her friends tentatively feeling their way through a cactus garden. On the other hand, this clip from the film shows a man who's been neglected his whole life and is living in a kind of feral, inchoate isolation. When someone gives him a radio for the first time, his face acquires a kind of focus. In the scene where he clasps the radio to his heart, I felt my own chest vibrating, too. It's so powerful, this scene. He's an eerie film subject to watch, since he has no idea that he's participating in a film. You know, speech is fine. I have a love-hate relationship with speech, the spoken word. But I've often wondered why all of us don't use hand signs and sign language on a regular basis, too.
- umanor rated 9 days ago
- Having been born with profound hearing loss, and now that I'm doing research for the National Institute of Deafness, I've always been motivated to improve people's hearing in whatever way possible. But I've realized recently that even if I could have a surgery or take a pill that would recover my hearing, I wouldn't. I'm not as deaf as the boy in this video. I am fortunate in that I can wear hearing aids and compensate very well - I even play music! But if/when I take my hearing aids out, I don't hear a thing. So I truly get the best of both worlds. With my word, and with this video, I tell you now that symmetry in this universe practically requires that everything in life is a double-edged sword. But I am reminded of a quote by Hellen Keller, "Blindness isolates me from things, but deafness isolates me from people". I strongly believe that most people can adapt to whatever situation they are placed in, but I won't be able to forget that deafness is a major cause of depression. Deaf people have a society of their own, as expected by the fact that they have their own language. But they have to live in a world surrounded by people who speak a language they can never learn. This is not a situation that anyone else has to deal with. And so continues my research...
