Mourning

Michael Cooper

 

Imagine that you are a twelve year old young man living in a country where you experience oppression daily. In this case, this country is Iran. Then take on the experience of two Deaf adults also living in Iran where they feel oppression in very different ways.. Their self-journey path of three very different individuals is being shown throughout the movie. The entire length of the movie is during their trip on the way from a rural location to Tehran Their experiences of oppression is the essence of what the movie; “The Mourning” is all about.

 

 In this movie, there are three central characters. The young man is a CODA who is being “abandoned” by his hearing parents. As young as he is, he is well-aware that he is being abandoned and being forced to be taken care of by his Deaf Aunt and his husband. He conveyed his emotions by pretending to ignore his Aunt and Uncle by placing earplugs on his ears yet his Aunt and Uncle both are unaware that the young man is observing them intensely as they converse about their emotional struggle on how they decide what to do the best for the young man’s future. The young man, observing the pained and heated arguments between the adults, conveyed his emotions by telling the adults that he really needed to go relieve his natural duty often. As he gets out of the car to relieve himself, he would cry his heart out.

The adults, equally as lost in their own struggles, had to navigate through the hearing world as they journeyed from the rural location to Tehran. Throughout the journey, the car repeatedly broke down, so they had to deal with hearing people in order for the car to be fixed. They constantly had to alternate between their ongoing struggles between how to deal with the young man and how to deal with the broken car as well as how to deal with the larger hearing and dominant world. The breaking down of the car symbolized the break-down of the communication between the two loci: the communication between the Aunt and Uncle and the communication between the adults and the young man. At the ending of the movie, the communication barriers had caused a dramatic change in the relationship between each character.

 

 

 Audism and the response by the oppressed characters are both examined intensely throughout the movie through the lens of three very different characters within the Iranian Deaf and Hearing perspective. This movie is a very thoughtful-provoking one because this movie helped me realize that Audism really is universal. Equally true is the maladaptive ways that people react to behavior can also be universal. Within this context, it is also fascinating to see aspects of Iranian Deaf Culture being shown. I would recommend you to see this movie if possible.