The Sounding

I was blown away by how well the words of Shakespeare were used to drive the story. So much art in one movie. I was captivated from the first turning point and empathetic towards the protagonist. This is pure drama. I felt a surge of emotions in many scenes. There were very few that fell flat but the overall story was poignant and masterfully executed. A few times I noticed some some poor sound mixing which left me a bit distracted and took away from the touching scenes. This was however, a breath of fresh air to watch. I simply loved it.

This film is one of the finest examples of a new filmmakers finding their voice and fully exploring the medium of film. With a screenplay by Catherine Eaton and Bryan Delaney, a creative and engaging plot and extraordinary performances from Ms. Eaton and the well- chosen ensemble cast including a fine supporting performance from Harris Yulin, this film leads one down unexpected paths and challenges your thinking about relationships, standards of normalcy and language. What is most intriguing about the film is it's wonderful use of cinematic language in the evocative landscape in which the story evolves and the wonderful faces of the ensemble. Well chosen aspects and enticing shots lead the audience into this unusual world of artists, not depending on dialogue alone but allowing the film to speak for itself. It creates a fascinating amalgam of incidents, relationships and solitude which linger in the memory long after the film is over. A really excellent first outing for this creative team!

The Sounding is the kind of film you see every few years that comes out of the indie circuit and rekindles your belief in storytelling and the power of human connections. Beautifully shot, acted, and realized. These are filmmaker we'll hear from in the future. And Catherine Eaton is already a movie star.

The Sounding is a brave film about resistance: resistance to conformity, to conventionality, to the expectations of the dominant culture and its narratives about normality and sanity and the kinds of lives we're allowed to pursue without the cultural enforcers, including the medical establishment and the state, coming down to set us straight via medication and even incarceration. So long as we speak the exoburban language of consumption and self and reaction and generally behave, chances are good we'll be left alone. But, if, one day, we lose faith in conventional discourse and subvert it by beginning to speak . . . Shakespeare, well, all bets are off.

Catherine Eaton is mesmerizing as Liv, a young woman who, on a windswept island off the Maine coast, has chosen to remain silent for years. Eventually, she begins to speak again, but in an English composed entirely of Shakespeare's words. That's when the assault on her freedom begins. She must be protected, mustn't she? Surely, she must be normalized, the cause of her anomalous behavior diagnosed, and a path to "recovery" prescribed and followed. Surely she must give up her resistance to those who would help her. Surely.

Ms. Eaton both directs the film and delivers a masterful, haunting, and powerful performance as Liv. The cinematography is breathtaking — the Maine coast is difficult to get wrong, but its desolate, Novemberish beauty is a poignant setting for Liv's struggle to be free and live an authentic life as she imagines it. Eaton has written that the film is ultimately about "otherness" and its cost. It couldn't come at a more propitious moment than the present that is witnessing a demonization of the foreign Other who presents such a vulnerable scapegoat onto which too many Americans are projecting their anxiety and insecurity. It will be a great benefit for this film to be available for all Americans to see and think about.

Satisfies the hunger for a good, original story told and acted well . . . a compelling mystery, at that, with nary a vampire or serial killer in sight. The premise of an intelligent, vital individual, choosing not to speak, seemingly content to summon, reconfigure and enter Shakespeare's words, poetry and drama at will, to suit her every mood and occasion is intriguing. Loved it.