Available to watch on YouTube.
Nominated for an Oscar in the Best Live Action Short category, “Feeling Through” is a film about a chance encounter between two men in the middle of the night and the conversation which ensues. What makes this action noteworthy is that one of the men is both deaf and blind.
Yes, this synopsis may invoke “The Blind Side” or “The Help”; movies where a privileged person helps someone who is seen as having a disadvantage, and by the end is transformed into an enlightened privileged person, simply by assisting the “less fortunate”. In other words, “Feeling Through” might sound like it would be the type of story which exploits someone with disabilities in order to make non-disabled audiences feel better about themselves. But thankfully it never stoops down to that level. This is mainly due to an authenticity brought forth by the actor who plays the deaf-blind man; an actual deaf-blind actor named Robert Tarango. This aspect creates a realness which overtakes the film as the two leads begin to communicate via alternative means. These scenes help “Feeling Through” become more about the idea of entering someone else’s universe for only a brief moment, in order to understand their world a bit better.
As far as the Oscar nomination is concerned, this story based on an event from writer/director Doug Roland’s past, is nothing you haven’t seen before. In fact, next to the other nominees, it’s pretty vanilla. So, the focus of this film should and will be on the casting of Tarango and be seen as an important step towards normalizing the casting of deaf and blind actors in roles that are written as deaf and/or blind.
Final Thought: Executive producer Marlee Matlin has stated in recent interviews that during civil rights movements, those with disabilities are often left out. And that’s why this film is so important. While I would have loved a more creative story, witnessing a deaf-blind actor play a deaf-blind character in a film that is nominated for an Academy Award supersedes anything else about this film. This is a start. This is a move in the right direction.
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