Idyllic place: water and rocks intertwine in a natural enchantment, where time seems to stand still. Angela and her partner Hector immerse themselves together in that liquid landscape that envelops and transcends, in a silence that, for her, is not an absence but an ontological condition. Angela is deaf and has chosen to fully embrace it, rejecting hearing devices since childhood. Yet, her silence is not isolation: she works, drives, moves independently in a world that too often confuses hearing with communication.

Pregnancy brings excitement mixed with uncertainty. Genetics presents a concrete possibility: their child could be deaf. A 50% probability that becomes an existential question. For Angela’s parents, this fact is not neutral: behind their hesitation lies the echo of a society that measures individual worth through sensory parameters. But for Angela and Hector, love is a language beyond sound, a harmony that finds its code in signs, in glances, in presence.

Hector becomes the bridge between two worlds: his voice turns into gestures, translating reality for Angela with a dedication that is both love and responsibility. The day of childbirth becomes an ultimate test. Communication turns into a battlefield: as the doctors speak, Angela cannot understand them, and the barrier of inaccessibility becomes real, tangible. When Hector is forced to step away, she reacts instinctively, pulling the mask off the gynecologist to read her lips. A gesture of resistance, a refusal of invisibility.

The wait for baby Ona’s hearing test is filled with anxiety. Amniotic fluid has temporarily compromised the test result, and uncertainty weighs on Angela like a shadow. When the verdict arrives—Ona is hearing—it is not the relief everyone expects. A new, intangible but unbridgeable distance arises. The baby cries often with her mother, while she calms down with her father. A relational enigma that shakes Angela to the core of her motherhood.

What once seemed natural now becomes an obstacle. Language, a vehicle of connection, turns into a boundary. Hector continues to translate, to make the world accessible for his partner, but the flow of communication becomes asymmetric: Angela feels increasingly on the margins, excluded from the bond forming between father and daughter. A sense of estrangement intensifies with every interaction, turning into an open wound.

The hearing daughter grows up in an environment where sound is the key to relationships and knowledge. Her bond with her mother is deep but marked by a distance difficult to bridge: words come naturally to her, while her mother must construct every dialogue with effort, searching in expressions and gestures for a way to be understood. Their connection is not impossible, but it requires constant effort, a mutual will to find common ground where they can recognize each other without resentment or regret.

Not being able to hear is not just an absence; it is also a different way of perceiving the world. The mother is not a prisoner of silence but a witness to a parallel reality where communication expresses itself through other channels. The real struggle is not her deficit but the challenge of making her daughter understand that there are other forms of expression, other ways to convey emotions and thoughts without necessarily relying on spoken words.

Within the silence that surrounds the life of a deaf mother lies a tension beyond the difficulty of communication: it is the clash between two worlds, the absence of sound and the presence of speech, two universes that, while coexisting, struggle to harmonize. The mother does not merely live with a sensory limitation; she experiences daily the frustration of not being able to express herself in the same way as her daughter, of seeing her affection translated into signs that the other struggles to decipher.

The crisis erupts, bringing the need to understand. An argument, a momentary separation, pushes Angela to observe her experience from a new perspective. Among her deaf friends, she sees a reflection of her own unease: a hearing child, born to deaf parents, appearing estranged from the world he is growing up in. An inversion of perspective that sheds light on her pain: perhaps Ona’s struggle is not about not hearing, but about not being heard. Communication is not one-sided; it is not mere transmission but mutual creation.

The film, in its narrative structure, emphasizes this experience through moments of absolute silence, particularly from minute 80 onward. The audience is immersed in the dimension of deafness, not as a lack but as a mode of existence. A sensory immersion that overturns common perception and forces a new way of listening.

On Ona’s birthday, Angela attempts an extreme experiment: she wears hearing aids again as if for the first time. But the world manifests as deafening chaos, an invasion of amplified noises that overwhelm her. Hearing is not necessarily a gift; it can be a violent alteration of one’s perceptual experience. Her silence is not a prison; it is her way of existing.

The actors' impeccable performances intensify the existential dimension of the film: every glance, every hesitation, every distance between the characters is laden with meaning. Deafness is not just a theme but an experience that the viewer is called to live with total immersion.

Yet, in the end, something changes. It is not a definitive solution, nor a resolution of difficulties. Rather, it is a transformation in perception. Angela and Hector discover a new balance, a new form of dialogue that is no longer just translation but shared creation. The encounter between two solitudes generates an unprecedented possibility for Ona: not the need to choose between two worlds, but the ability to inhabit both with awareness. No one is entirely inside or outside a context, no one is completely separate from others. Communication is not merely a function of hearing but something much more.

A new beginning emerges on the horizon: a relationship not built on normalization but on the meeting and clash of differences. In this space, Ona will not have to choose between two languages, because she will be able to live them both.

When you watch my mouth, my breath stops

…that wound condemns me without rest…

Deep kiss and deep death that is on your face.

(Neskaren Kanto by Ana Arsuaga Verde Prato)

15-Feb-2025 by Beatrice