A Blind Song

A choir of sighted and unsighted members travels to Japan to sing in the footsteps of the Goze, blind itinerant female musicians whose tradition dates back to medieval times and no longer exists today. Over the course of the journey, their paths, their voices, and moments in time intersect. And our eyes gradually get accustomed to the depths of darkness.

A Blind Song opens with a clap: a gesture to ensure that sound and image are in sync. A self-evident principle that, in fact, is a false start. For in this film, sound and image do not create synchronicity, but rather an interval where visual or sound vibrations circulate, to be felt rather than seen or heard. The first voice that greets us in this space is Angélique’s, who has been blind since birth and shares with us how she perceives the world. The film remains attuned to her by shifting its writing towards sound. Spaces to explore emerge far beyond the frame through the sound-writing by Cécile Sans, whose voice circulates amongst the sounds, vibrations and dissonances. Not as a commentary but as a further material. This writing accompanies the “tac-til choir” to which Angélique belongs on a trip to Japan, following in the footsteps of the goze, blind female musicians who would travel the country to appease the dead and recount stories with their drums and lutes, and songs that would conjure up invisible landscapes. The film alludes to them without ever actually showing them – hands, faces appear, placings re-arranged – and captures the resonances of their tradition. It seems as if the image also starts to listen. Between each mishap, each trembling, the film grains become shadows that make the unshown perceptible. Like shadows, distant or unfamiliar sounds as well as silences bring us closer to a world that can be read differently. Here, seeing no longer means simply looking, but rather letting voices open up landscapes within us.

Clémence Arrivé Guezengar