Miss-Delectable
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http://www.newsday.com/entertainmen...0,5855924.story?coll=ny-moviereview-headlines
It has always seemed that "Kundun" is one of Martin Scorsese's best films, because the spiritual inspiration of its subject, the Dalai Lama, can be found in the filmmaking itself. Scorsese, never an underachiever anyway, rises to his subject, is bettered by him, and the director's own aspirations are alchemized in the camera.
The same can be said of Thomas Riedelsheimer, already the considerable director of "Rivers and Tides" (a portrait of artist Andy Goldsworthy), and now of "Touch the Sound," which is less about an artist, but of her work and how she does it.
Riedelsheimer's subject, Evelyn Glennie, is a Grammy-winning Scottish percussionist of varying styles and a vast panoply of instruments. She also happens to be deaf. Few audiences will not know this going in - Glennie is world-famous, and besides, her deafness is the "hook" of the movie. So it's a bit coy for Riedelsheimer to "reveal" the fact only some minutes into the movie. But he also allows himself to be inspired by Glennie's refusal to succumb to a "handicap" and actually use her lack of hearing to make virtuosic music. Glennie uses her body as "some kind of resonating chamber" and Riedelsheimer allows his eye to become an ear.
"Educational" is the dirty word of documentaries, but "Touch the Sound" educates in exhilarating ways, ways that are immediately applicable to how one lives one's life. Riedelsheimer's circular take of a Glennie snare drum solo in the middle of Grand Central Terminal - not at rush hour, granted - or his precise selections from the din of midtown Manhattan, or the clop of feet at a Cologne airport, all broaden the viewer's awareness of where and what sound is and how many make up the street-score of our lives. He also provides a window - or the aural equivalent - into how Glennie sees and feels the world, as a series of vibrations that she channels into music.
Riedelsheimer avoids any "triumph over adversity" cliches, but there are moments of great music - with avant-guitarist Fred Frith or a team of kodo drummers in Japan - as well as scenes of great heart: Glennie's instruction of a deaf girl at a special school on how to play the bass drum - and what it means, and how it works - is the kind of moment that could make a blind man cry.
It has always seemed that "Kundun" is one of Martin Scorsese's best films, because the spiritual inspiration of its subject, the Dalai Lama, can be found in the filmmaking itself. Scorsese, never an underachiever anyway, rises to his subject, is bettered by him, and the director's own aspirations are alchemized in the camera.
The same can be said of Thomas Riedelsheimer, already the considerable director of "Rivers and Tides" (a portrait of artist Andy Goldsworthy), and now of "Touch the Sound," which is less about an artist, but of her work and how she does it.
Riedelsheimer's subject, Evelyn Glennie, is a Grammy-winning Scottish percussionist of varying styles and a vast panoply of instruments. She also happens to be deaf. Few audiences will not know this going in - Glennie is world-famous, and besides, her deafness is the "hook" of the movie. So it's a bit coy for Riedelsheimer to "reveal" the fact only some minutes into the movie. But he also allows himself to be inspired by Glennie's refusal to succumb to a "handicap" and actually use her lack of hearing to make virtuosic music. Glennie uses her body as "some kind of resonating chamber" and Riedelsheimer allows his eye to become an ear.
"Educational" is the dirty word of documentaries, but "Touch the Sound" educates in exhilarating ways, ways that are immediately applicable to how one lives one's life. Riedelsheimer's circular take of a Glennie snare drum solo in the middle of Grand Central Terminal - not at rush hour, granted - or his precise selections from the din of midtown Manhattan, or the clop of feet at a Cologne airport, all broaden the viewer's awareness of where and what sound is and how many make up the street-score of our lives. He also provides a window - or the aural equivalent - into how Glennie sees and feels the world, as a series of vibrations that she channels into music.
Riedelsheimer avoids any "triumph over adversity" cliches, but there are moments of great music - with avant-guitarist Fred Frith or a team of kodo drummers in Japan - as well as scenes of great heart: Glennie's instruction of a deaf girl at a special school on how to play the bass drum - and what it means, and how it works - is the kind of moment that could make a blind man cry.