Touch the Sound: A Sound Journey with Evelyn Glennie

This film is a wonderful "experience", sort of like a very extended music video, or something you'd get from a VJ (Video Jockey, remember that term?). In spirit it reminded me of Fantasia. It also reminded me of those 60's "happenings", except there's no need to drop acid here.

The images are all "realistic" things you might see with your own eyes (no microscopic nor aerial nor computer-generated nor artificial images). At the same time, they're arresting images: things you've never seen before, or a different way of looking at something, or deep meditations on an everyday event. The camera relentlessly moves back and forth between indoors and outdoors, guided by continuity of themes, people, and sound. Match cuts abound. Just a couple examples: We watch a feather falling through the air, then at the moment of impact the image changes to ripples spreading over the surface of a pond. We watch traffic crossing a bridge as the bridge towers that look like columns are emphasized, then the image changes to different columns that hold up the roof of a large building.

The audio is mostly either percussion performances or "found sound" (much of the rest is philosophizing), sometimes synced with the images and sometimes independent. Some of the performances are fairly conventional (except on a higher plane than usual), others are improvisational and highly experimental. Several are so far off the beaten track they seem to call up the context of "modern art".

Often a theme jumps back and forth from audio to video to audio to video to audio. And sometimes images get pretty imaginative: for example heat waves making buildings in the distance shimmer is reminiscent of water, so next we see a fisherman casting, then we see buildings with greatly exaggerated shimmering as though looking through actual water. Rather imaginative, since the last time we could get our bearings we were in the middle of a grid of streets. It's obvious there was extensive editing and not everything is presented in chronological order: Evelyn's hair may be blond, then red in the next scene, then blond again in the scene after that, and so on.

In one sense deafness is the foundation. But in another sense deafness is largely irrelevant. If I remember right, there's one long scene, another short scene, some scattered images, and some scattered bits of dialog that refer to deafness, or only make sense with deafness as a background, Maybe it totals something like 3% of the screen time. But that's it. It seems possible that a sufficiently obtuse viewer could watch the whole thing and never realize Evelyn Glennie is deaf. If you're looking for an uplifting moralistic tale about surmounting handicaps, this film is beyond that - it just assumes that as given without ever talking about it.

At first when I read "one of the best percussionists in the world", I thought "yeah right, why have I never heard of this person?" But after listening all the way through the film, my dubiousness vanished. Not everything good is in the U.S. Even if you usually find percussion to be just "background noise" or "accompaniment", the musicality here is undeniable. It's obvious the percussionists listen intently and watch each other and adjust, reminiscent of improvisational jazz.

I suspect if seen with enough understanding, this documentary explores a whole philosophy in a coherent way. (I don't really know if that's what the filmmaker intended or not.) What I do know is I didn't see it that way ...and I don't care (and maybe it isn't that way anyway:-). If you're waiting for "something to happen" or "some profound insight", you quite likely will find the film unbearably tedious and slow. It doesn't seem to me to welcome being approached that way.

It's to me, almost the best music and musician-related documentary ever.

If you love music or making sound and love to feel the vibration of the sounds around you, this documentary is just made for you.

I absolute love and have a passion for making different noises and sounds from everything and this is the first time I'm seeing someone with that much passion as me.

For numerous reasons I cried a few times during this, especially the second watch... mainly because of, seeing her success and her approach to make everything happen but I failed mostly, as a hearing person...

It can be extremely inspirational to everyone, especially people with difficulty hearing or deaf people.

Evelyn Glennie is a great musician and she always surprises me of her talent and imagination.

Everything is excellent in this fabulous documentary. From production to cinematography, directing, sound editing, sound mixing, editing...

8.5/10.

After Thomas Riedelsheimer turned the film going public on it's ear with his portrait of Andy Goldsworthy in 'Rivers & Tides:Andy Goldsworthy Working With Time',he next turned his camera lens on Evelyn Glennie, a classically trained pianist,who lost something like 80% of her hearing at an early age. This would have swayed most "would be" musicians away from music,but not Glennie. She managed to switch from piano studies to percussion,as percussion instruments are louder than the piano. As a result,Evelyn Glennie has become one of the most respected (and busy) musicians around. There is a bounty of footage of her rehearsing for various performances,as well as film footage of her recording a CD with Fred Frith (who also contributed original music for 'Rivers & Tides'). The end results is a well crafted documentary that like Rivers & Tides is breath taking to look at,as well as to listen to. This film opened to both praise,as well as scorn (mostly from the hearing impaired community,who's main complaint was that the film had no subtitles to translate the spoken text). Still,a film to seek out. I eagerly await any & all future offerings by Thomas Riedelsheimer (and would also love to see any of his older films,as well). As is with 'Rivers & Tides',no MPAA rating,but nothing to offend anybody (unless one is adverse to new & experimental musics)

This is one of the best documentary I have ever seen. I loved it from very first scene till the last. Beautiful sounds, Amazing cinematography. You have to feel the sound to enjoy the movie. My best part of the movie was when she was explaining about Silence...Once of the heaviest sounds we have...and its kinda scary...and its beautiful in a way. I think only a true artist can understand this movie better. I liked the way she was exploring the possibilities wherever, whenever sound could be produced...it was more a like a child like curiosity...trying to understand what is this sound and how it touches me...vibrates me...inside out. And it was amazing she could find a rhythm in everything she touched.

Boy, did I get suckered into watching this disappointing DVD. I should have remembered that when you see a ton of complimentary comments by critics all over the DVD cover, you can be almost guaranteed the film is a stinker. "A feast for senses" - New York Daily News, was the one that got me. Being someone who is in love with cinematography and has a decent surround system to enjoy good audio, this documentary intrigued me. "Filled with gorgeous music." - The Chicago Tribune.

People - do not pay attention to these morons. Yes, there is some nice visuals in here but none of the music is beautiful unless you a huge fan of percussion (drums, mainly.) Yet, rarely do you think of someone beating on a snare drum as "gorgeous music."

This is a story of a Scottish woman, Evelyn Glennie, who is almost deaf but has a tremendous appreciation for sounds, almost any kind of sound. She also is an outstanding percussionist. Since she has a major hearing problem, she has learned to "hear" through vibrations and hears more, as they would say, than we unimpaired people. Evelyn is definitely talented and unique. I wasn't impressed with the DVD but I was with her, and who wouldn't be?? She's an extraordinary human being. She loves to converse on the subject. Sometimes she's interesting, other times she goes on too long on a subject.

The same applies to most of the "chapters" on this DVD. Some are good but most get tedious after the first half dozen. It's simply too repetitive and boring. If you doubt this, ask yourself: would I watch someone pounding a stick on some object for several minutes? That's what you have in many, many scenes here. Oh, the instruments and the sounds are all different, but it is anything but a "thrilling audio and visual experience." To sit through this for 100 minutes - now THAT is a challenge!