Deaf: Subtle Shifts

Review by In the Frame participant Neil Berrick 

In the Frame is a program that fosters inquiry, reflection, and an appetite for cinema. As part of our In the Frame program, up to four emerging film critics had the opportunity to watch, reflect on and review films in the Perth Festival Lotterywest Films 2025 – 26 season. 

Silence in cinema is rarely empty. In Deaf (Sorda), director Eva Libertad treats silence not as absence but as perspective. The film’s soundscape moves between muted ambience, vibration and distortion, drawing the audience into the sensory world of its protagonist, Ángela. Rather than explaining the experience of deafness, the film asks us to pay attention to how communication is shaped by what is seen, felt and shared. 

Expanded from Libertad’s earlier short film and informed by her close connection to the material through her sister, Miriam Garlo, who plays Ángela, the story unfolds in rural Spain. The setting is spacious and quiet, grounding the film in a landscape that amplifies both intimacy and isolation. 

At its core, the narrative is deceptively simple. Ángela and her hearing partner, Héctor, are preparing for the arrival of their first child. Their home life appears stable and loving, and the couple share an easy rhythm. Yet parenthood introduces a new vulnerability, and the invisible thread of communication between them begins to feel more fragile.

Libertad avoids melodrama, choosing instead to let tension accumulate through small, everyday interactions that reveal how easily Ángela is edged out of spaces not designed with her in mind. These moments establish a society shaped by unintentional exclusion, where no one intends harm, yet accommodation is rarely considered. A doctor addresses Héctor rather than Ángela about her pregnancy during an appointment. In a shop, Ángela struggles to find a baby monitor with flashing lights or vibration, and the assistant’s confusion underscores how narrowly accessibility is imagined. In social settings, friends grow animated and talk over one another at the dinner table, excitement overtaking the patience required for Ángela to follow. Even physical intimacy can become isolating when someone speaks with their face turned away during a hug. None of these moments are cruel or deliberate. That is precisely why they linger, revealing how quickly a deaf person can be sidelined when systems and social habits default to sound. 

From the outset, the film’s craft reinforces this experience. Sound is not presented as stable information, but as atmosphere. Conversations drift when faces turn away. Voices lose clarity and become texture. Meaning emerges through gesture, eye contact and sustained attention. For hearing audiences accustomed to dialogue carrying most of the meaning, Deaf asks us to engage differently; to recognise how much communication relies on presence rather than sound. 

Rather than leaning on a traditional score, Deaf is shaped by an interplay between sound design by Enrique G. Bermejo and a minimal composition by Aránzazu Calleja. Music is used sparingly, often giving way to silence, ambient noise and partial sound. The result is a sensory experience that mirrors Ángela’s perception, where sound is felt as much as heard, and moments are allowed to unfold without instruction.

That careful attention to detail carries through to the film’s performances. Libertad’s closeness to Garlo is felt in the way Ángela’s experience is handled with trust and patience. Garlo’s performance is precise and refined. Small shifts in posture, lingering looks and moments of stillness carry much of the film’s emotional weight. The film trusts these details, allowing meaning to surface gradually rather than pushing for emphasis. 

This is reinforced through the understated cinematography of Gina Ferrer. The camera stays close to Ángela, favouring natural light and unhurried framing. Faces, hands and slight changes in expression are given weight, while moments of uncertainty are allowed to linger. Ferrer creates a visual language built on proximity that results in a quiet alignment with Ángela’s experience. 

At the centre of Deaf is Ángela’s relationship with Héctor, played by Álvaro Cervantes, whose performance is marked by restraint and sensitivity. Cervantes brings warmth and sincerity to the role, grounding Héctor as a caring partner whose intentions are consistently generous. His presence complements Garlo’s performance, creating a relationship that feels lived‑in and deeply familiar. 

When conflict arises, it emerges organically, with neither partner positioned at fault. Instead, the film observes how love operates within unequal systems. In certain situations, Héctor becomes interpreter and advocate, translating between Ángela and the hearing world. This role supports their connection while also quietly altering its balance. 

Libertad approaches this dynamic with compassion. Héctor listens and offers support, yet his ease within institutions and social settings contrasts with Ángela’s experience of exclusion. Even within a caring relationship, imbalance persists when the wider world does not adapt equally. The film captures this tension without judgement, recognising how easily exclusion can take root through habits that go unquestioned rather than unkind. 

When Ángela is among her friends from the deaf community, the film briefly softens. Interaction feels easier and less mediated. These moments of familiarity underscore what is missing elsewhere, reminding us how connection flourishes when communication does not require constant negotiation.

The arrival of Ángela and Héctor’s daughter, Ona, alters the film’s sense of equilibrium. Parenthood brings new forms of closeness and shared responsibility, and Libertad initially frames this through adjustment rather than rupture. Communication becomes more tactile. Visual cues take on greater importance. Attention is redistributed. Parenting emerges as something negotiated in real time, shaped by responsiveness rather than certainty. In these early moments, connection remains intact, even as its form begins to change. 

As Ona grows, however, the shift becomes more pronounced than the film’s quiet pacing first suggests. The realisation that Ona can hear unsettles the balance Ángela and Héctor have established. Without signalling a dramatic turning point, Libertad shows how communication begins to align more easily elsewhere. Small differences compound, and Ángela finds herself increasingly positioned at the margins of everyday exchanges. 

Ángela’s response is not framed as resentment, but as a growing awareness of distance. Ordinary moments take on new significance as language and responsiveness flow between Héctor and Ona with an ease Ángela cannot share. Familiar rhythms begin to change, not abruptly, but through repetition. 

Deaf observes how exclusion can re‑enter loving relationships without intent. There is no single misstep and no one at fault. Instead, the film traces how default modes of communication quietly reshape dynamics, leaving Ángela negotiating a more precarious sense of belonging within her own family. 

Exclusion does not always arrive at once. It accumulates through systemic structures, social oversights and well‑meaning assumptions. Libertad’s filmmaking reflects this, allowing scenes to unfold just long enough for the effort of staying connected to register before the world moves on. It does not turn hostile; it simply continues, sometimes without Ángela. 

That sense of accumulation is shaped through Libertad’s approach to craft. The film moves with deliberation, supported by a soundscape that is central to its emotional impact. Careful cinematic control, paired with the lead performances, creates an experience that feels both absorbing and deeply introspective. Deaf asks for attention rather than sympathy, allowing its insight to emerge through observation, not emphasis. 

By the time it reaches its closing moments, Deaf has quietly reshaped how we understand communication and inclusion. Without overt statements, the film suggests that genuine connection is something built through attentiveness and a willingness to stay present.