EIt’s a complicated case. A judge is to rule on whether a family where both parents and children are deaf poses a “child welfare risk” because the parents decide not to give their young daughter a cochlear implant that could enable her to hear. And whenever things get complicated on German television, it gets – complicated. The director Petra K. Wagner starts her film “You Shall Hear” with the court scene with which it also ends. Mother Conny (Anne Zander) and father Simon Ebert (Benjamin Piwko) reject the operation through which daughter Mila could learn to hear and speak – in the sense of not deaf people. So the question is in the air, with the answer to which the film wants to achieve a better understanding of deaf people, a “change of perspective” as it is called: Why not?
Is the well-being of the child at risk?
The attending physician, Prof. Dr. Theo Rotschild (Kai Wiesinger) reported the case to the youth welfare office after Conny Ebert spoke out against the implant in his office hours. Judge Jolanda Helbig (Claudia Michelsen) is to judge whether Mila’s well-being is endangered if everything stays as it is, if she continues to “only” speak sign language.
The Apple film Coda (2021), about the relationship between a girl who can hear and her family who are deaf, recently demonstrated how humor and emotion can be used to approach the subject. He showed that a life lacking tone is not necessarily ruled by lack. He shows people whose hearing doesn’t work the way most others do, not as victims – but without spelling it out.
In “You Shall Hear” everything should affect us: the contrite expressions of everyone involved – especially that of the judge, whose own story of suffering soon completely eclipses that of the Ebert family – as well as complicated everyday situations, for example when the police in a traffic accident the innocence of the “Mumbling” (that’s what the subtitle says) father doesn’t recognize or son Mats is teased out of nowhere by rowdy children.
The “Judokan” dojo serves as a counterbalance to the Ebert family’s depiction of victims (as if we were back in the eighties), to which father Simon retreats to channel his frustration in a kata solo exercise and later – whatever you do – Smashing concrete slabs with your elbows. But the Eberts are condemned to remain victims, because they have to agree with the not very surprising thesis of the film that deaf people also belong to a discriminated minority. Conny is then almost put it in his mouth: The cochlear implant is a great profit for the economy – “not for us. It’s discriminatory,” she says.
The thesis of the film that deaf people – according to the film, the term “deaf” should be avoided – is rarely seen in society and rarely integrated is not wrong. We would have been all the more interested in learning about the life of a deaf family. But we mostly see them in problem situations and don’t learn much about the motives that prompted mother Conny to decide against the operation. Health risks are stated, but otherwise their position seems like this: why should we change, when society should do it. People like Conny should be able to rightly say and demand that. Nevertheless, one learns little about the background of this decision, which is momentous for Mila. We also learn little about what a world that does not discriminate against deaf people should be like. Except that sign language has to become more present in everyday life.
Educational film and melodrama
Above all, we learn so little because this educational film turns in the direction of melodrama and in the last third is much more interested in judge Helbing, who witnessed the death of her son, whom she shared with Prof. Dr. Rothschild hadn’t processed it and didn’t tell her new friend Jonas (Jan Krauter) about it either. With that, the last 25 minutes of the film come to an end before Helbing gives the closing speech about inclusion as the “basis of a humane society”.
In an interview with producer Simone Höller and producer Anemone Krüzner provided by ZDF, the two tell how challenging it was for the team to shoot with deaf actors. It was also enriching. There was learning and a “feeling of sameness”. You immediately believe that it is a great effort to make a film in two languages, so to speak, including sign language interpreters, communication assistants and supervisors. In terms of inclusion (color or animated full-screen subtitles enabled us to view without sound) and weighing up the pros and cons of cochlear surgery, the film wants to do everything right. However, the weaknesses in the book and picture are unmistakable. When Claudia Michelsen strides through Cologne with a serious expression on her face – which she does very often – she seems impregnated against wind and weather: If she runs through the watermark of a lawn sprinkler, lost in thought, she doesn’t get wet, nor does the rain have any effect. Continuity errors – wine glass first held by the glass, then suddenly held by the stem – are noticeable, but could be gotten over if at least the scenes were relevant.
From an important and “well-intentioned” concern, ZDF has made a mixture of “Schöner Wohnen” and school television, which is not interested in those affected, but in the political message. A documentary about the production of the film would probably not only have been more interesting, it would also have been better in terms of “show don’t tell”.
You shall hear is on ZDF today at 8:15 p.m.