Land of Silence and Darkness (DVD)

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Werner Herzog has built his films around protagonists who live on the fringes of society, outcasts who are either madmen or "pure" innocents. For most viewers, the central image of Herzog´s films is the contorted face of a raving Klaus Kinski; for others perhaps the placid stare of Bruno S., cinema´s ultimate tabula rasa. But if you peel away the layers of Herzog´s work, now more than four decades long and still growing prodigiously, you will find at its very core neither Aguirre nor Kaspar Hauser but rather Fini Straubinger, the subject of "Land of Silence and Darkness" (1971), one of Herzog´s most enigmatic and mesmerizing documentaries.

Fini grew up like any other child but then took a nasty spill down a set of stairs when she was eight years old. Though she seemed fine at the time, problems gradually developed through her adolescence; she had terrible headaches, heard a ringing in her ears and eventually went deaf and, later, blind as well. She spent years bed-ridden with hardly any access to the outside world, but never gave in to despair over this absurdly cruel cosmic joke played on her. Years in her own land of silence and darkness only made her stronger, and she decided to share this strength with others afflicted with the same condition. Herzog follows her on her wide-ranging travels as she facilitates communication with deaf-blind patients throughout Germany.

Herzog contests critics who describe his protagonists as outsiders; he sees them instead as the "normal" ones and the masses as the real outsiders. Fini exemplifies this Herzogian ideal; she is the center of an entire sub-culture which revolves around her, and Herzog depicts the members of this society (the deaf-blind) with a sense of reverence that borders on the mystical. The deaf-blind are, in this film, seers into a whole different realm of existence denied to everyone else, the real outsiders.

Herzog marvels at the language the deaf-blind use; it´s a kind of tactile Morse code in which each letter is represented by a dot or dash on different parts of the hand. Fini has mastered it, but she remains unusual among her fellow travelers because she also speaks quite articulately; she is a unique figure who bridges the worlds of the hearing and the deaf-blind. Fini possesses other remarkable traits as well. When she caresses the face of a deaf-blind woman who is unable to communicate at all, we cannot help but sense Fini´s near-infinite reservoir of patience and gentleness.

In another scene, she speaks with a young deaf-blind man named Vladimir who was neglected as a child and thus never "awakened." Never having developed any form of language, he does little more than make guttural noises and hit himself in the face with a ball. He can be quite rough but when he grabs Fini´s hands too strongly she simply laughs and says, "Don´t hurt me, little one." She holds out hope that she can reach him one day. Fini is practically a saint and through her "Land of Silence and Darkness" acquires an aura of tenderness and intimacy not always present in Herzog´s films.

Film can only capture sight and sound, the two senses Fini and the other deaf-blind people in "Land" do not possess. However, the deaf-blind are empowered in the film by their mastery of the other senses. Thus we watch as Fini fondles a flower and smells the bud; she asks if it is ripe enough to eat. In one of the most memorable scenes, a group of deaf-blind people go to the zoo and pet the animals. Fini laughs as she holds a rather confused-looking chimpanzee; she strokes his soft fur and caresses his face. She may never be able to watch or listen to "Land of Silence and Darkness" but we, as mere film viewers, also cannot know exactly what she senses in this oddly lyrical moment.

"Land of Silence and Darkness" is one of the earliest salvos launched by Herzog in his battle against cinema verite. Herzog contends that merely capturing reality does not automatically grant access to the truth; sometimes fabrication and invention are necessary to access a deeper truth or what he calls the "ecstatic truth." In other words, an artist´s role is to interpret the mere facts which by themselves are insufficient and present them in a manner that enables the audience to better understand a more profound and resonant level of reality.