I first heard this story as a radio piece on 360 Documentaries and was blown away by how great it was. Then a friend sent me this New York Times video version which I also love. It combines audio diaries from a man who documented his experience of going blind, with beautifully crafted film images and archival style reenactments. The story behind the making of this piece is here.
I’m a huge fan of audio diaries and the intimate and reflective space they can create, and I think in this case, the audio works really well with images. It’s a sad piece, but the final part is so beautiful that I don’t think I’ll ever listen to the rain the same way again…..
“rain brings out the contours of what’s around you. In that it introduces a continuous blanket of differentiated and specialised sound, uninterrupted, which fills the whole of the audible environment…..If only there could be something equivalent to the falling of rain inside, then the whole of a room would take on shape and dimension”
