Land of Silence and Darkness

Film-maker Werner Herzog attempts to explain the unfathomable in this ambitious study of what it must be like to be deaf and blind. His aim is to suggest something of the isolation that separates such people from the world the rest of us take for granted. Robbed of her sight and hearing after a childhood fall, Fini Straubinger is an erudite, 50-something German woman who accepts new experiences like flying in a plane, while also visiting those born with her disability and trying to make meaningful and empathetic contact with them through touch. But even this is difficult in cases like Vladimir Kokol's, as his father was so disinterested in a boy also afflicted with Down's syndrome that he never bothered even teaching him to walk. Herzog records such encounters with detachment in order to confront viewers with their grim reality. But, as the final sequence depicting Heinrich Fleischmann (who was also neglected by his parents) hugging a tree affirms, this is more a celebration of sensorial courage and inquisitiveness than a plea for pity.