Film: Beyond Silence
Release date: 6th September 2010
Certificate: 12
Running time: 109 mins
Director: Caroline Link
Starring: Sylvie Testud, Howie Seago, Tatjana Trieb, Emmanuelle Laborit, Sibylle Canonica
Genre: Drama
Studio: Arrow
Format: DVD
Country: Germany
Beyond Silence is a coming of age drama with a twist. As well as the usual teenage angst and dysfunctional family members, here director Caroline Link throws a curve-ball into the fray – two of the main characters are deaf and as a result much of the dialogue is delivered in sign language. The film is little-known despite being nominated for a Best Foreign Language Film Oscar – over a decade later does the movie deserve to find a bigger audience on DVD?
Lara Bischoff (Tatjana Trieb) is the 8-year-old daughter of Martin (Howie Seago) and Kai (Emmanuelle Laborit), both of whom are deaf-mute. Mature beyond her years, Lara acts as her parents’ ears, and facilitates their communication with the outside world. Acting as their gateway to wider society, she regularly forsakes her own education to assist them until her feisty aunt Clarissa (Sybille Canonica) gives her a clarinet for Christmas. A longstanding family feud ensures that Martin soon becomes jealous of the burgeoning relationship between his sister and daughter, and this is exacerbated by the fact that the gift of music which Clarissa has given Lara is one in which he cannot participate and is unable to understand.
Ten years on, Lara is an accomplished musician, and, with encouragement from Clarissa, looks set to audition for a prestigious music school in Berlin. Living with her bohemian aunt, Lara falls in love with a teacher of deaf children as she prepares for her entrance exam. But just as the future seems to be falling into place for Lara, a tragedy back home threatens to derail her plans…
All too often films which attempt to tackle ‘issues’ such as those in Beyond Silence over-emphasise those issues. Here, that kind of clumsiness is adeptly avoided. No explanation or back-story is given to explain how Lara’s parents came to become so dependent on their young daughter, and none is required. That the director sees fit to credit the audience with the ability to read between the lines enables the film to explore the effects of the situation the characters find themselves, rather than how the situation came about. Characters are rounded and complex from the start and this helps to instantly draw the audience into their world.
The narrative works on a number of levels, and it’s perfectly possible to interpret the action in a number of ways. For some, the emphasis will be on the deafness which shapes the movie, for others the effects of jealousy will be the driving force. Sibling rivalry and the redemptive power of music or father/daughter bonds are also evident themes. It’s a multi-layered story which requires excellent acting performances and gets them.
Tatjana Trieb, as the young Lara, really shines. Her role is especially difficult as many of the words she speaks are not those of a child, but those of her parents. In a stylistic device, Lara’s mother and father’s words are often not subtitled – this leaves Lara to interpret those words for the audience. Approaching the dialogue in this way strengthens the sense that communication is difficult for the deaf characters, as well as giving a great insight into the dual role which Lara plays as both a growing child and a care-provider.
Beyond Silence contains some wonderfully understated scenes. A beautifully tender moment between Martin and Kai sees them having a signed conversation in bed. Almost silent, the two figures are wrapped around each other and bathed in blue light, with Martin’s arm coiled around his wife. He signs using this hand, forming the words in front of his wife’s eyes whilst never breaking their embrace.
Similarly, the young Lara is transformed seamlessly into a young woman during a clarinet recital. The transition takes place almost unnoticed thanks to some clever direction and remains effective thanks to the excellent performance of Sylvie Testud as the older Lara. The two young actresses must have worked together extensively, as their mannerisms, and even their facial expressions are a perfect match. The film would not work nearly so well but for the way the two actresses dovetail, meaning that the audience concentrates solely on the character rather than the actress playing her.
There are occasional bum notes in this most musical of films. The love affair between Lara and Tom (Hansa Czypionka) almost seems to happen too quickly, and a scene in which they dance to Gloria Gaynor’s ‘I Will Survive’ seems designed to inject some fun into proceedings, but is a bad fit for this kind of movie – it would be better suited to an out-and-out musical than a film about a musician. There’s also something slightly wooden about the performance of Howie Seago as Martin – occasionally his flashes of temper seemed to come from nowhere. The thawing of the character, however, does lead to more warmth in the portrayal.
Sadly, one of the great frustrations of a film which concentrates so intently on the problems of communication is that much of the subtitling is unreadable. With white captions on light backgrounds many of the words are lost – and often at key times. It’s a frustrating flaw, and one which would be corrected with a little more care and attention.
The greatest praise that can be lavished upon Beyond Silence is that the issue of deafness is not one which weighs it down. The film could almost certainly be remade as a more regular domestic drama – although it wouldn’t be nearly so interesting – thanks to the depth of the characters, stellar performances from Trieb and Testud, and its universal themes. It’s a little known gem, and well worthy of your time. RW
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