SOUND AND FURY A film review by Steve Rhodes Copyright 2000 Steve Rhodes RATING (0 TO ****): ***
Introducing us to a world that few of us know exists, namely that of "deaf culture," Josh Aronson's documentary is aptly named SOUND AND FURY since members of the deaf community are surprisingly protective of their world and their culture. The single biggest disappointment of the film is that we never learn exactly what comprises deaf culture, but we do discover that large numbers of deaf people are extremely protective of it. This zealous cultural protection is fascinating.
The film uses the controversial cochlear implant as the focal point of tension between the deaf world and the hearing world. A cochlear implant in the ear, if done when a child is young, is quite effective, allowing the child to develop hearing and speech. But like bilingual education, it is controversial. It is most effective when all of the subsequent education in done without the "crutch" of signing, just as total language immersion is more effective in teaching than a hybrid language approach.
Members of the deaf community, especially older ones, view it as a tragedy when a deaf person loses his deafness. One of the deaf grandmothers says that she was happy and thanked God when her hearing-able daughter gave birth to a deaf son. The suggestion that her grandson might get a hearing implant causes her to become extremely angry. The word "abuse" is tossed around a lot. One side views it as abuse not to give a deaf child the ability to hear while the other side views taking a deaf child out of the deaf world as abuse.
The focus of the story is a large, Long Island family. One branch, Peter and Nita Artinian, who are deaf, are in sharp disagreement with Peter's brother Chris and his wife Mari, both of whom can hear. Peter and Nita's 4-1/2-year-old deaf daughter Heather has decided that she wants an implant. With a long list of sounds that she is excited about hearing, Heather gets her parents to look into it. Since they feel that this would take Heather out of the rich deaf culture, they decide against it, knowing full well that, if she waits, it will be too late.
In contrast, Chris and Mari want all of the opportunities possible for their deaf, 1-year-old deaf son, so they decide to go through with the operation, even though Mari's deaf parents protest strongly.
As both families investigate the same operation and come to completely different conclusions, we learn a mixture of facts and folklore. We are told that deaf high schools graduate students who, on average, read at a fourth-grade level. When Nita defends her decision not to get the implant for Heather, her mother reminds Nita that she can't even read well enough to understand a cooking recipe. In contrast, members of the deaf community raise doubts about the procedure and claim that it will turn the kids into robots.
The film takes an evenhanded approach to material that would be easy to slant. Putting us inside the heads of both parents, we begin to feel the pain of making decisions that will affect their children forever. Of course, understanding some of their motivations doesn't mean that we can agree with them. Sympathy is possible, but it is hard to condone Peter and Nita's actions. Several analogies are suggested to them by Peter's parents. Would they not want their children to see if what they shared with them was blindness rather than deafness? What if they couldn't walk and they had children who did? Would they want to break their legs? Not accepting the analogies as being apropos, Peter and Nita bristle at the suggestions.
Your reaction to the film may depend on your ability to hear. Members of my audience who signed frequently during the movie got agitated and laughed at different times than I did. The intriguing film should provoke strong emotions and raise excellent question regardless of the viewer's auditory ability.
SOUND AND FURY runs a fast 1:20. The film has English subtitles and most of the characters sign. It is not rated but would be a G. Any child old enough to be interested could see it.
Email: Steve.Rhodes@InternetReviews.com Web: http://www.InternetReviews.com
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