Hear and Now
Filmmaker Irene Taylor Brodsky aims her camera at her own life to capture the remarkable transformation of her deaf parents, who decided to undergo a life-changing procedure to restore their hearing after spending 65 years in silence. Chronicling her parents' experiences over their first year of having sound in their lives, Brodsky tells a deeply personal tale that moved viewers to bestow it with the Documentary Audience Award at Sundance 2007.
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Reviews
best movie i've ever seen.
I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.
Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.
Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.
After 6 months the Audiologist said simply words with his mouth covered to the couple and asked them to relay them back to him. They could not relay back anything at all correctly - way off on all words. So they were just guessing.I wanted him to say just two words with his mouth uncovered - then cover his mouth and say them. In fact, why were they not training in this manner? The movie tells you nothing at all about the audio-linguistic training that the couple surely must have gone through ? I agree with the previous Poster about the Wife. Her constant emotional outbursts were too much and I also ended up disliking her a bit. Whenever something was not to her liking . . . waaaaahhhhh !! Constantly !! Get a grip Lady - you knew the implant was supposed to take a long time to get used to and to not expect too much.Ken
I saw this movie on a random movie channel that I was flipping through. As I continued to watch this movie it became so overwhelming, all I could really do is cry. This movie not just brings tears but smiles and laughs too. This movie captured the presence of a wonderful love between the filmmaker's deaf parents as the struggle through a dangerous surgery to finally hear after 65 years of "silence". Hear and Now should be on everyone's must see list. This movie will change your outlook on everything you see and hear on a day-to-day bases. I give congrats to Irene Taylor Brodsky in this amazing film portraying her family's life through silence and sound. I would love to have the relationship her parents have one day.
I have just seen "Hear and Now" on HBO. I regret to say that my comments cannot be positive because anyone seeing this documentary would be profoundly discouraged about the possibility of a successful cochlear implant. It did not work for the couple in the film for a variety of reasons, none of which is discussed. It is much too easy for people to become discouraged because of this kind of movie. Here are a couple of experiences that have occurred that do not project the discouraging outlook of the people in the film.(1) One and one-half years (2006) ago one of my first cousins who had been profoundly deaf for at least 25 years had a cochlear implant. Her four sons tell me they are overjoyed that they can now carry on a conversation with their mother.(2) After my cousin's successful implant, I then told one of my best friends about the implant surgery. This friend had been unable to converse with others even with the most powerful hearing aids available. She and her husband had been misinformed by an audiologist about her eligibility for surgery. When she went to the hearing institute in the city we live in, physicians not only said she was eligible, but performed the procedure September 2007. This week-end my friend was at two parties given for one of my sons and she was able to engage in give and take conversation with all of the guests. She is now going to have an implant in the other ear.If I had seen this film and was eligible for an implant, I would have been terribly discouraged.The film did not present a balanced view.
The very first thing that turns me off from documentaries are biased perspectives. The second turn-off is overly emotional displays meant to endear the viewer to the character. Unfortunately, this documentary uses generous amounts of both.The fact the director is the daughter of couple probably wasn't a good idea to begin with. I felt that she was enthralled with her mother's sensitivity and she was fixated on filming her tantrums and tears. I personally found all the moodiness repugnant and hated her by the end. I was more interested in the father and his scientific accomplishments, but was disappointed by the director's passing reference to him. Instead I was fed more mommy tears and wailing.The was the Sundance audience award winner for documentary, and I thought it wasn't a good reflection on their taste. Awful, awful, awful!!!