In Argentine filmmaker Marcos Martínez’s Sordo (Deaf), a theatre troupe made up of real-life deaf thespians called Extranjero (Foreigner) is preparing a groundbreaking play called Sordo, just like the film. It is an unusual play entirely performed in sign language with no interpreter for the audience. This way, these persons can vindicate their own way of communicating among themselves, but also with those who are not deaf.
Equally important is that they hope that by writing, directing, performing and showing their play, the exposure to a general audience may give them further possibilities to become professional actors within an independent or commercial circuit, as opposed to performing in plays meant as therapeutic activities at special institutions for deaf people only.
Above all, these performers insist they be called “deaf” instead of “hearing-impared,” which they believe is nothing but a politically correct euphemism. To make themselves clear, they rejected a festival prize because it cited them as “a life example,” and not because they are good actors. To them, it’s a prize given out of pity. And they are right.
Given this scenario, you are likely to think that Sordo, the film, is a regular documentary.
After all, it closely follows these actors in their rehearsals and improvisations in a very realistic manner, it candidly accounts for their everyday routine with friends and next of kin, and it smartly chronicles the many aspects of their whole creative process. So let’s say that Sordo, the film, is a documentary.
But that’s not quite true for this theatre’s acting troupe didn’t exist prior to the film and it doesn’t exist as such.
Also, the play they are preparing is actually not to be performed, and the many vicissitudes they face are scripted by the filmmaker. This stuff is pure fiction.
On the other hand, the snippets of quotidian life are authentic for the most part, their names and family ties are as seen in the film, and their life stories are also true.
No script whatsoever. Not that you can tell the difference between reality and fiction, because the entire movie is filmed in the same cinematic style, with the same overall tone, same cinematography and same editing technique. What really matters here is not to delimit the frontiers between both formats, but to blur the thin line between them.
So Sordo, the fictional play, is an excuse to make Sordo, the movie, which comes across as an insider’s, insightful, and never condescending up and close look at the intimate universe of deaf people in all its complexity and nuances.
Ideologically defiant and rightly non-conformist, Martínez’s opus does not have a didactic purpose. That would have been too easy and rather patronizing. Instead, it’s about observing and relating to what happens in the lives of these real life actors. Actors who happen to be deaf, and not deaf people turned actors. It may sound similar, but it’s indeed quite different. Of course, quite a few issues regarding discrimination are addressed, but not in the foreground.
But you do get to see what being deaf means in many aspects (including sentimental liaisons), in a very imaginative fashion, allowing far more sensitive observations than a conventional feature.
PRODUCTION NOTES
Sordo. Argentina, 2014. Written and directed by Marcos Martínez. With Nelson Floridia, Florencia Franco, Iris Huerga, Lisandro Rodríguez, Damián Scigliano, Marisa Di Chiazza. Cinematography: Javier Guevara. Editing: Marcos Izaguirre. Sound: Gino Gelsi, Jorge Gentile. Produced by María Vacas, Marcos Martínez. Distributed by: 966 Films. Running time: 89 minutes. Limited release: Gaumont and Malba movie theatres.
