Musuta Kusaka's Everyday Journey with Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Japan

Don’t give up. Just that alone is so satisfying.

This movie made me feel like I want all my work to be like this movie. It’s not a typical “work movie.”

The movie in question is ” Interpreters of the Heart .”

It was a great movie, so I thought I’d write down my thoughts about it here.

Audio guide for sign language? Synopsis of “Interpreters of the Heart”.

This movie is a documentary. Truth is stranger than fiction, that’s the saying. The story is a bit complicated. So, I’ll give you a quick synopsis.

There was once a short documentary called “Welcome to the World of Stage Sign Language Interpretation.”

Stage sign language interpreting is the simultaneous interpretation of lines and emotions in sign language so that deaf people can enjoy the theater.
“Welcome to the World of Stage Sign Language Interpretation” is a work that follows three stage sign language interpreters.

This short documentary is nothing short of amazing.
Throughout the film, the passion of the stage sign language interpreters (Mr. Kato, Mr. Mizuno, and Mr. Takada) to “communicate” is conveyed through their hands, facial expressions, and entire bodies.

So they come to us with a request:
“We want to somehow convey this excitement to people who are blind. Can we add an audio guide?” In other words, they want to make sign language, a silent language for the deaf, audible once again. And in a way that even people who are blind can be moved by it.

What does that mean?

This difficult problem was brought to Cinema Chupiki Tabata, Japan’s first ” universal theater ,” and a leader in “audio guides” that convey movies verbally to the visually impaired.

This is where Cinema Chupuki Tabata’s representative Hiratsuka’s challenge begins. Together with a group of unique collaborators, including people with visual impairments and people involved in stage sign language interpretation…

Right? It’s too crowded, right? The themes are too complex. The characters are too diverse.

And there it was. This was the end, everything was beautiful, and the end was in a harmony beyond imagination. It felt great!

The passion to communicate of Hiratsuka’s team and the stage sign language interpreters who cooperated with them. The emotion of the blind people who received that.
The moment when the audio guide was completed as the hub and started to function.
“Ah! This is it! This is it!”
I was overcome with the pleasure of having discovered something together.

Enter the world of deafness, sign language and visual impairment. The audience travels with the characters.

“So that you can see the sound, so that you can hear the light”
is the tagline for this film. I think it is a beautiful sentence that accurately captures the appeal of the film in just the right number of words (who was the genius who came up with this?).

But this is not just pretty language. This film really follows the struggle to “see the sound, hear the light”.
After watching the film, I was able to appreciate the power of this tagline.

Why do I want to say it’s amazing? It’s because the task of adding audio guides to sign language is incredibly difficult.
The fact that there is no precedent for this speaks to how difficult it is.

First of all, explaining a movie in an audio format so that people who can’t see can understand it. That in itself must be difficult. It’s not enough to just read out everything that’s on screen. You have to accurately grasp what information is required and verbalize it within the time limit.
Moreover, to convey emotion, it’s not enough to be concise. You have to pursue words and sounds as well.

If the thing being voiced is a “language” like sign language, it’s even more difficult. Even if you voice those actions realistically, people who don’t understand the language will not understand it. But if you translate the meaning conveyed by sign language, it’s just dubbing. It should no longer be a question of whether the audience can see or not.

On top of that, even though it is sign language, the delicate nuances and complexity of “Japanese Sign Language”, a legitimate natural language, make it even more difficult. I learned for the first time that sign language also involves using the arms, the eyes, facial expressions, and even the entire upper body. Because there is a deep deaf culture behind it, there can be no proper audio guide without understanding it.

So, naturally, producing a sign language audio guide was not an easy task. At one point, there was some pretty strong halting from the stage sign language interpreters.
Hiratsuka and his team, who were producing it with their cooperation, also went through a process of trial and error.

The audience, including myself, got to witness this process up close and personal. We were opening the door to the world of deaf people and sign language, and learning a lot – about visual impairments, of course. It was like the feeling of a traveler who can’t stop looking around before an unfamiliar horizon. At this point, it can be said that this is a very educational film.

Refreshingly unwilling to give up. I feel hope in the creativity of dialogue.

When Hiratsuka and his team started working on the audio version, I was at a loss and thought, “This is impossible, isn’t it?” However, that hopelessness gradually turned into hope , “Huh? Maybe we can do something about it?”

Then my excitement turned to, “Wow! Maybe this is going to work out?”

And it’s no surprise. None of the characters give up. Not only Hiratsuka’s team, but also the stage sign language interpretation team that cooperated with them, and the visually impaired supervisors.

They don’t give up in the face of difficulties. No. Even when they do get discouraged, they don’t stop talking. In fact, it’s as if they enjoy it. The characters were portrayed so carefully that I empathized with them all the more. They are cheerful, fun, and tenacious.

They are refreshingly refusing to give up, and they have repeated conversations, which crystallize into the audio guide. And what’s more, it is a pleasant piece of work that unites content and means in a harmonious form of expression.

People who can’t see. People who can’t hear. People who can’t understand. A group of people who couldn’t possibly understand each other came together to create a creativity that didn’t exist in the world before. I felt joy at being able to witness its birth. To me, that moment felt more hopeful than anything else. If we don’t give up on communication, we might discover something beyond it. I thought it would be okay to be a little more excited about that creativity. By settling on something that can’t be settled, I was content to stop thinking. For me, the completed audio guide resonated with me as something precious.

Ah. It’s really finished. The expressions of the people who did a good job are projected on the screen. It’s a gentle pleasure. When the end credits finished, I gave a small round of applause.

What on earth is the completed audio guide like? You can only understand that by listening to it. Maybe it’s just my pride as someone who can see and hear. But I thought that this is a movie that people who communicate with others in their lives, in other words, a lot of people, should see.

Watch the trailer here:

The rap ending theme is great. The cute pamphlet comes with a curse.

The quality of this pamphlet is very high. The colors are light, elegant, and cute. It’s not just about the movie, it also has information about stage sign language interpretation and how to make sweets. It ‘s also a fun read, like a magazine…

This is the back cover. It’s embossed with Braille, based on the theme of the movie. Cool, right? What does it say?

“Haunt”

Why?!

It seems that he typed the Braille incorrectly. He meant to type “Kokoro” (heart) but ended up typing “Tatari” (curse).
The heart is the heart, but it’s the dark side. The complete opposite of the movie!

After the screening, the director, Mr. Hiratsuka, was smiling as he greeted us. I never expected to leave the cinema laughing after watching such a moving film. This episode alone will ensure that I will never forget this film.

When I bought it, it was the first batch of 100 copies. It
may be sold out now. I hope they don’t fix it even if they print more. If you go to the movie theater, it’s a must-buy item. When I got home, I was talking to my wife about how great this movie was.

Me: “By the way. All of Chupiki Tabata’s movies have audio guides. So does this movie have an audio guide too?”
Wife: “I don’t know.” Me: “So you’re putting an audio guide on a movie that has an audio guide for sign language? Isn’t that confusing?”
Wife: “You skipped work and didn’t listen?”
Me: “I forgot.”
Wife: “That’s the problem.
” Me: “…”
The “curse” of the pamphlet had a very immediate effect.

I’m thinking about going to Chupiki Tabata again to check out the “audio guide for a film that uses sign language.”

That’s it. Thank you for reading to the end.