Audible

Good & Nice beautiful. What more? Thank you! My review is to short they say. So OK! This is the best film ever! Thank you very big for this! Still to short my review, ok big big love for you all and keep keep. You are the best!

At the 94th Academy Awards last week, "CODA" won Best Picture. That focus on the daughter of a deaf family was undeniably one of the year's best.

There was another deafness-themed production nominated that night. Matthew Ogens's "Audible" focuses on the Maryland School for the Deaf, and how the students play sports as well as come to terms with a friend's suicide.

Most of the documentary is told in sign language with subtitles. Rarely have I seen something like this. One of the most impressive documentary shorts out there. Definitely check it out.

The players, coaches and parents are likeable characters, and although short, it's an enjoyable and heartwarming 40 minutes. If you enjoyed Last Chance U, then you'll probably like Audible.

It does feel like it needs to be feature length, or maybe even a limited series following a season with the Maryland Orioles. Come on Netflix, make it happen!

Competing for the Oscars 2022 in the short film documentary category, it is directed by Matthew Ogens.

The film follows Amaree, a teenager who plays on an American football team. The difference is that he is deaf, as well as the coach and all the team members. The team competes for the national championship, playing and beating teams with hearing players. A defeat, after more than 40 victories in a row, made the whole team unite even more towards the common goal, which was to overcome that obstacle and win the championship.

Director Ogens intersperses moments of the team with interviews with some players, among them Amaree, with the adoptive parents of a player who committed suicide at age 15 due to bullying he suffered at the listening school, and with members of the cheerleaders, among them a gay teenager, Amaree's friend, whose first love was just the boy who killed himself.

Although it's a documentary, in the moments when the players are in the locker room or on the field, the scenes felt rehearsed, scripted, not spontaneous. It was as if the director were directing a fiction.

This lack of spontaneity in the teams' scenes is a point that leaves the documentary without life, it doesn't take off, staying in the same way until its conclusion.

The coach's testimony, at the end, is very interesting, as he says that together, the boys overcame the challenges and obstacles of a deaf person on the football field, but he was sure they would face greater obstacles and prejudices when they left that bubble.

I don't really understand why it's a short and not just a full on documentary. There is so much that could have been explored deeper and better, but because if the runtime kinda feels cropped up. The subject itself is very good. I like the way they do the interviews and let us into the mind of the deaf players, but again, that could and should have been explored a lot more. The subject and goal are very interesting and cool to look at, but the execution is poor on this one. It's a shame, because it does have its moments.