Sound and Fury

Story For Long Island's Artinian family, the possibility of giving two young cousins high-tech cochlear implants is a deeply emotional matter that divides deaf and hearing relatives. Deaf husband and wife Peter and Nita Artinian fear that if their 6-year-old daughter gets one of the implants, she'll lose her identify as a deaf person. Meanwhile, Peter's hearing brother and sister-in-law decide to go ahead with an implant operation for their infant son, upsetting deaf family members. Are the children better off remaining safely in the deaf world or trying to cross the gap into mainstream hearing society?

Acting Captured in amazingly intimate moments, the family's children, parents and grandparents speak frankly and intelligently about topics that cut to their fundamental ideas about life. Peter and Nita's passionate arguments challenging the hearing world's assumption that deafness is a handicap that should be "cured" are especially fascinating.

Direction Still photographer-turned-documentarian Josh Aronson's remarkable access to his subjects during such an important turning point in their lives is a case of reality being as gripping as anything a fictional filmmaker could invent. The choice of this particular family to follow around with a camera is inspired one: The mix of deaf and hearing relatives in all three generations allows the film to examine a broad range of relationships (hearing parents to deaf children, deaf parents to hearing children, deaf siblings to hearing siblings) in only 80 minutes of screen time. Edited in an engaging, story-driven style, the finished product moves more like a dramatic feature than a documentary.