This is Artur Żmijewski’s second film documenting the singing of a deaf choir. The first, from 2001, featured students from the Institute for the Deaf and Mute in Warsaw. They sang Jan Maklakiewicz’s Kyrie from the Polish Mass at the Evangelical Augsburg Church in Warsaw. Two years later, a group of deaf young people from the Samuel Heinicke Schule for the hearing impaired in Leipzig sang Johann Sebastian Bach’s cantata Heart and Mouth and Deed and Life in Leipzig’s St Thomas’ Cathedral. They were accompanied by the Barockensemble der Fachrichtung Alte Musik and mezzo-soprano Ewa Łapińska, who sang solo parts.

Both films create a cacophony of distorted sounds. The artist described the project as follows: ‘This is a film about failure — in musical terms it is a disaster. Of course it was predictable — they are different, and their difference is confirmed. Despite their best efforts, they did not resemble hearing people; instead, they confirmed their disability through their hobbled music. And that is probably touching.’ Also significant was the choice of Leipzig — the place where Bach was cantor, where he is buried, and where the Thomanerchor youth choir still performs works on period instruments as in the 17th century. Using the canon of high culture, the artist created a work open to the values of the critical art movement.

Audio description: The soundtrack interweaves laughter, the inarticulate sounds of conversation and the students’ singing with the music. During practice sessions, the conductor speaks to the young people in German. The individual notes played by the students form a melody, but are not clean and correct. During the performance in the church, the soloist’s pure voice contrasts with the choir’s off-key singing.