Yesterday’s lectorial and the discussion about the experiences of those who are unable to hear made me think back to a film I watched before I started the course.

La Famille Bélier is a french film about a family, all of whom are deaf expect for the daughter, Paula. She is their connection to the hearing world, until she discovers her talent for singing and wants to leave to studying singing in Paris, a dream her deaf parents struggle to understand.

There is one scene in the film that uses sound extremely powerfully to communicate why Paula’s parents can’t understand how talented their daughter is. It is at the school concert, which Paula’s family are attending, and Paula is singing a duet. A few seconds after they begin to sing, the audio cuts out, helping the audience to understand what the experience of see a singer perform is like for someone who is unable to hear them.

The film really made me think about how deaf people have created their own culture to share with one another how they experience the world without sound. However one thing that bothered me about the film was that it wasn’t ideal for deaf people to see, as much of the film relied on its use of sound. What made the film so wonderful and influential was also what made it unsuitable for the demographic it wanted its audience to understand better.

While sound is an incredibly powerful tool, its worth remembering that not everyone is able to experience it in the same way.