Beyond Words by Armand De Saint-Salvy

This short film was showcased at Tropfest (the bigest short film festival) and was an australian finalist.
from watching this piece its also opened my eyes to the amount of freedom there is with subject matter and how its portrayed.
beyond words is literally beyond words, it came as such a shock to me that the man was Blind and the woman was deaf, i literally thought the piece was silent for a reason and that the little sound was only there to keep interest.

The cameras deffinately create a tense atmosphere along side the blank sounds. with the jittery camera shots and the blank screens with sound it creates questions in your head about how many people cope with disabillites such as those.

the story is simple, a Woman goes to a yoga class and a man in sunglasses appears to be staring at her throughout the session; the yoga session ends then you find out the man was blind and that changes the perspective the audience was initally given, from on edge because of a stalker to sympathetic due to the fact the man is blind.
the woman then procedes to leave class and goes to her car with the blind man shortly behind her, the screen then goes blank and you can hear the man saying "hello is anyone there hello"
then the camera jumps to the woman who is going to her car and another man grabs her from behind and is seen shouting but you cannot hear until she looks at him then the blind man comes up and the mugger runs away (most of this is incredibly hard to explain due to the nature of its filming) and the woman explains shes deaf and has to see his lips to understand him.

the shots throughout this short film are styalizes for 1 sense at a time, when the camera is persuing the woman the only sense you use is sight as there is no sound (as it would be for a deaf person) and when the camera follows the man, there is complete darkness and only sound so the audience focuses on hearing.
everything shot and heard is all personal, as you feel like you are a bystander watching what is happening to the two people.

to watch "Beyond Words" Click the link below:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJlVNxBbrU8