Jenseits der Stille - Beyond the Silence, a German Film.

I've been meaning to watch the film for a while, as I found the basic concept interesting. Jenseits der Stille or Beyond the Silence centres around a hearing child that grows up with two deaf parents. It begins in a small German town, where there are no professional interpreters nearby and both parents never learnt how to speak. Deafness is a keen theme in the film, as well as the use of sign language. But the main core is the concept of Music, as the hearing child grows with a love of playing the clarinet.

There was some interesting scenes that would repeat throughout the film, such as the deaf father looking at the window and asking his daughter what it sounded like outside. This helped emphasis the change of scene and was well conducted. There are other scenes that repeat too, and overall I have to comment on how artistic Beyond the Silence is. There is plenty of dancing, including in the best scene of the film where the song 'I will survive' started to play, which was an incredible mix of sign language and sound. Constantly, there is beautiful background music which only on occasion stops into silence which is bold and dramatic.

There is a mix of tragedy, love and romance which has a neat balance. The romance is especially well portrayed and easy to understand. There is one or two romance scenes that are nude but remain artistic. There is also a lot of skinny dipping for reasons I never really followed........

A few things were a little sudden and the plot didn't convince me completely. The father's personality and motives was not clear and while the script said he was against the child playing her clarinet, he never really said it himself, it was more the girl being a little angsty and a bit jumpy.

But as characters, each character was great and had some good depth. I liked how 'real' they seemed to be - no one looked overly beautiful like a model, each seemed like a person that could exist in everyday life. There was also mini sub plots for example, between the father and his sister, and the aunt and the uncle. This was good and made a good story altogether. 

Overall, this is an interesting film to watch for the curious and there is a lot of style in the film. I enjoyed it. However, it's not for everyone and I do not think it would have decent rewatch value.

Points wise...

The Plot: +5 Points

The Quality of Drama: + 8 Points

Music/Settings/Charisma of the film: + 10 Points

The Characters: + 10 Points

Cheese: 0 Points

Bonus Points: +5 for topic, +3 for particually excellent scenes

This film scores 43 points, equal to four stars.