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Crappy film

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."

Touch the Sound: A Sound Journey With Evelyn Glennie (2004): Dir: Thomas Riedelsheimer / Featuring: Evelyn Glennie, Fred Frith, Jason the Fogmaster, Roger Glennie: Compelling idea for a documentary about the mystery of sound and its affect on people. Directed by Thomas Riedelsheimer who introduces Evelyn Glennie as an almost deaf musician who experiences life through sound. Traveling around the world she visits schools where she demonstrates a whole new way to relate to sound. She instructs one student to strike a drum while her hand and arm feels the vibration. She travels to odd locations such as a farm where ruins prospect much life for sound with various objects. Glennie herself is an expressive sort who cannot always explain her feelings and reactions to various sounds yet her face mirrors her pleasure in discovering new sound and variations. She is the main human focus of the film while others are more brief. This is intriguing but also somewhat boring as she spends endless time usually in one place too long as if beating us over the head with its theme over and over would get the word out about this film. Viewers can share in her joy and enthusiasm but not with the film that propelled from it. The result is an intriguing and curious film that often drags through long segments that seem to go on forever in order to touch our senses to sound. Score: 5 ½ / 10

I found this movie completing inspiring. The director did a magnificent job of blending visual metaphors for sound throughout.This is a documentary about the only woman percussionist who happens to have a 90 percent hearing loss. She uses her body to sense the slightest movement in sound waves and creates amazing rhythms, sounds and melodies.Don't expect a quick start, but hang in there, this is rich, rich film, full of wisdom about the senses, sound, music and life. Definitely not for someone interested in the usual musical documentary or superficial treatment of a topic.

Boy, did I get suckered into watching this disappointing DVD. I should have remembered that when you see a ton of complimentary comments by critics all over the DVD cover, you can be almost guaranteed the film is a stinker. "A feast for senses" - New York Daily News, was the one that got me. Being someone who is in love with cinematography and has a decent surround system to enjoy good audio, this documentary intrigued me. "Filled with gorgeous music." - The Chicago Tribune. People - do not pay attention to these morons. Yes, there is some nice visuals in here but none of the music is beautiful unless you a huge fan of percussion (drums, mainly.) Yet, rarely do you think of someone beating on a snare drum as "gorgeous music."This is a story of a Scottish woman, Evelyn Glennie, who is almost deaf but has a tremendous appreciation for sounds, almost any kind of sound. She also is an outstanding percussionist. Since she has a major hearing problem, she has learned to "hear" through vibrations and hears more, as they would say, than we unimpaired people. Evelyn is definitely talented and unique. I wasn't impressed with the DVD but I was with her, and who wouldn't be?? She's an extraordinary human being. She loves to converse on the subject. Sometimes she's interesting, other times she goes on too long on a subject. The same applies to most of the "chapters" on this DVD. Some are good but most get tedious after the first half dozen. It's simply too repetitive and boring. If you doubt this, ask yourself: would I watch someone pounding a stick on some object for several minutes? That's what you have in many, many scenes here. Oh, the instruments and the sounds are all different, but it is anything but a "thrilling audio and visual experience." To sit through this for 100 minutes - now THAT is a challenge!

"Touch the Sound" is beautiful in the same way the wind-drifting plastic bag of "American Beauty" is beautiful. It is simple and profound, and even though it is right in front of us, we somehow cannot manage to see it. This movie is an experience, not in the sense of a journey, but rather, something you must feel in order to connect with. Movies like this keep us in touch.Everything has sound, and thus for Evelyn, everything is an instrument. No exceptions. Cans, bottles, rope, sections of aluminum, a snare drum, the sidewalk…everything. Maybe the only thing more impressive than her actual musical abilities is the open-mindedness of the people who watch her play these obscure instruments. The film takes us from Japan to New York to England to Santa Cruz, where we find a diverse group of cultures united by music. Or maybe it is something deeper than that."We need to eat, we need to sleep, and we need music." This is Evelyn's philosophy, one which she most certainly lives by. Evelyn is a woman who plays her percussion instruments barefooted in order to feel the vibrations they cast, so it is no stretch to say she quiet literally has a feel for what she is doing. She is a wonderful musician, who makes such a connection with her music that it is as if the music is not being heard through her ear, but rather resounding throughout her body.The most engaging moments in the film are found through the improvisations performed by Evelyn and fellow musician Fred Firth, who she has never met before. They create the soundtrack of the film through their willingness to experiment and explore with any and every combination of variances on traditional guitars and percussion instruments.Although I very much enjoyed the film, I did find that there were a few too many visual "sounds" where as a viewer I found the underlying message to be too apparent. Nevertheless, "Touch the Sound" is worth a watch, even if you are not a musician; its is simple, enjoyable and leaves us with a sense of inner harmony.