BEYOND SILENCE
Reviewed by Harvey Karten, Ph.D. Miramax Films Director: Caroline Link Writer: Caroline Link and Beth Serlin Cast: Sylvie Testud, Tatjana Trieb, Howie Seago, Emmanuelle Laborit, Sibylle Caonica, Matthias Habich, Alexandra Bolz, Hansa Czypionka
Your parents take care of you during the first two decades of your life: it's only natural that you'll want to do the best by them if they become old and frail. In some cases, unfortuantely, a child is made to take on too much responsibility at too young an age when asked to attend the needs of her vulnerable folks. "Beyond Silence" is the story of a child who is compelled to become the ears of her deaf father and mother. This German movie--which features two people who are hearing impaired in real life--deals with several popular themes: the special world of the handicapped; the effect a person's impediment has on those who surround him; the need of the young to free themselves from their homes and take responsibility for their own happiness; the subtle ways in which do-gooders actually exploit the souls of the people they are nurturing. But few recent films have treated these themes with the intelligence, the shucking off of sticky sentimentality, the maturity of this one. "Beyond Silence" is a joy from beginning to end, a movie which has no real villain but whose characters sometimes make you want to jump through the screen and spend a moment or two wringing their necks.
The picture opens on a German winter as eight-year-old Lara (Tatjana Trieb) watches her attractive and liberated aunt Clarissa (Sibylle Canonica) skate gracefully on a deserted, icy pond. Clarissa and Lara are a mutual admiration society with symbiotic needs: the older woman is childless and treats the child as a substitute daughter; the little girl wants ever so much to be like her beloved aunt. But the poor Lara must tend to the needs of her deaf parents Martin (Howie Seago) and Kai (Emmanuelle Laborit), who depend on her to mediate in sign language with the outside world--to arrange such mundane matters as bank loans and interpreting a teacher's comments on open school night. A turning point comes in Lara's life when she receives a clarinet from her musically gifted aunt. While Lara is eventually to seek admission to a prestigious conservatory, her father resents bitterly resents her attention to the music he cannot hear. Discreet flashbacks take us to Martin's youth as he is forced to attend a concert given by her sister Clarissa, the hearing child who is obviously favored by their parents.
Wonderfully acted by the adorable Tatjana Trieb as the eight-year-old Lara and as the expressive young woman at the age of eighteen by Sylvie Testud, "Beyond Silence" takes us through the usual rites of passage as Lara latches on to the empathetic young Tom (Hansa Czypionka), who teaches at a school for the deaf and who understands that while Lara enjoys the time they are spending together, she is deeply sad inside. In fact, as Lara later explains her fondness for klezmer music, "Inside it is joyful and wild, but at the same time it's not really free."
Caroline Link's direction gives the movie the woman's touch, particularly when Ms. Link explores the surprising conflict which emerges between Clarissa and Lara and considers the melancholy Clarissa feels despite her outwardly high-spirited show. You leave the theater with an insight into the closed-off world of the deaf, get photographer Gernot Roll's sparkling shots of Berlin and of the pretty German countryside, and best of all savor that all-too-rare "German- light" experience of a movie that seems utterly truthful and yet consistently entertaining.
Rated PG-13. Running time: 110 minutes. (C) Harvey Karten 1998
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