Paese del silenzio e dell'oscurità

What a beautiful film this is.

I saw it many years ago and it holds up on a re-watch. What makes this different from other documentarians making a film on this subject is that Werner does not pity and patronize these people. Instead he is fascinated by them, he reveres and admires them and the unique perspective they have on life.

Their experience of consciousness itself is completely different from ours and in this wonderful humane film the great man shows the utmost respect for his subjects.

My only complaint is that Herzog doesn't narrate the film himself.

Only the great Werner Herzog could've made this film.

... this Werner Herzog film - as powerful today as when it was made, introduces us to Fini, deaf and blind, and the empathetic things she does to help those similarly affected.

'Land of Silence and the Darkness', written and directed by Werner Herzog, is an extraordinary documentary -- remember that word, please -- about Fini Straubinger. As a child in Germany, she suffered a terrible fall which caused a popping sensation in her neck. She was afraid to tell her parents (I can well believe this), so the injury was never treated. As a teen, she progressively lost her hearing and her sight, becoming totally deaf and blind. When Herzog made this film, Straubinger was well past middle age, and had spent most of her life in silence and darkness.

Americans who see this film will be reminded of Helen Keller. But Keller lost her sight and hearing (to scarlet fever) in very early childhood, and retained only very slight memory of her stolen senses. (Touchingly, Keller did recall seeing the rainbows formed by sunlight refracted through the crystal prisms of her mother's chandelier.) Because Straubinger retained a full memory and understanding of vision and sound, she became useful as an ambassador to the kingdoms of the blind and deaf. Fini Straubinger has dedicated her life to working with people who are deaf and blind, most of whom have borne those double handicaps either from birth or (like Keller) from infancy.

Herzog follows Straubinger on a trip through Germany, financed by an organisation for the deaf-blind. We see her communicating with other deaf-blind people through a sort of tapping code. Activities which the rest of us take for granted are truly alien experiences for these unfortunate souls. For instance, the simple act of taking a shower: for someone who has never experienced this before, and cannot have it adequately explained, the sudden onslaught of pressurised water is deeply terrifying. In the final sequence, we see a deaf-blind man hugging a tree: attempting to experience this alien life-form through his senses of touch, taste and smell.

One sequence, showing Straubinger interacting with a chimpanzee, I found unpleasant and unnecessary. I get the impression that this scene was staged by Herzog in an ill-thought attempt to inject some light 'comedy relief' into a subject that audiences might find deeply depressing.

I made a point of identifying this film as a documentary, meaning it's non-fiction. Indeed, Fini Straubinger is a real person: her blindness, her deafness, and (more importantly) her work with the deaf-blind are all real, all true. At one point in this film, Straubinger tells us that her most vivid sensory memory -- before the darkness and silence closed in -- is an image of the rapturous faces of ski jumpers as they leap into the sky. After this film was released, Herzog admitted in an interview that Straubinger had never seen a ski jumper: Herzog wrote those lines for her, because he felt that ski jumpers provided the visual symbol (I refuse to misuse the word 'metaphor') which would simultaneously represent sensory rapture and Straubinger's own isolation.

I reluctantly concede that this sort of fictionalisation is a valid device in documentary films. Those of us who are fortunate to see and hear cannot truly experience the dark silent world of Fini Straubinger and her colleagues. (Unless we too are conscripted into that realm, by accidents or illness.) Since this film can never truly put us into the mind of a deaf-blind person -- especially one who has been both deaf and blind since birth, like most of the people encountered here -- some degree of invention is necessary. I recall an anecdote told by Albert Einstein (too long to repeat here; send me an email if you want the details) concerning his attempt to explain milk to a blind man: this incident never actually occurred, but Einstein told the story to prove a point about his theory of relativity.

'Land of Silence and the Darkness' is a fascinating film about a fascinating human being. My rating: 8 out of 10.

This Herzog film is unorthodox, as usual. It is approximately an hour and a half long, and somewhere in the middle it might seem like the film is not going anywhere. However, those who permit themselves to feel the power of this harrowing documentary will discover in the ending of the film a moment well worth their persistence. What is the purpose of mature film making? I like to think it is the sincere attempt to help us understand what it means to be human. If this generalization is accurate, Herzog's LAND OF SILENCE AND DARKNESS is mature film making. It is literally investigating what it means to be human without the sense of sight and speech. It has a heroic figure in 56-year old Fini Straubinger and a number of other characters who are compellingly mystifying. We wonder what is happening inside the minds of these human beings who are partially cut off from the world around them.

Story of Fini Straubinger who is "trapped" in her own body being both deaf and blind. Since the condition came on later in life she is able to speak and tells us what its like. We also watch as she goes around helping those like her. Communication is done via touching or writing on the hands. It becomes clear that the people in the film with this condition are trying to live full lives. An amazing film that shows us what its like not to be able to hear or see. Hopeful and yet unnerving-its not a state one really wants to contemplate having-its an important film since we see the world with a different set of eyes. Taking the matter even further Herzog and his crew also show us what its like for people born deaf and blind and how hard it is for them to even learn the basic things we take for granted. Moving. Haunting. Worth a look since it will make you reflect on how we get along.