The poetics of touch : mediating the reality of deafblindness in Planet of Snail

Abstract

As an audiovisual medium, documentary cannot directly engage our sense of touch. But for people who are deafblind, it is the sense of touch which is used primarily to connect with people and with the world. Insofar as the documentary provides a mediated reality of its subject, how can the world of deafblind people be presented through the two senses which are most inaccessible to them? How can the life of a deafblind person be portrayed without the ‘touchy-feeliness’ and sentimentality which often accompanies narratives about disabled people? And what ethical issues are raised by this particular representation of living with deafblindness? This chapter discusses these questions mainly with reference to Yi Seung-Jun’s 2011 documentary Planet of Snail. It analyses the techniques used in this documentary to convey the world as experienced by Young-Chan, a deafblind poet, arguing that while we can watch and listen to him ‘being-inthe- world’, we cannot experience the world as he does. The chapter also considers the documentary as a narrative of a loving couple, Young-Chan and his wife, Soon-Ho, who has a physical disability, in which their love is portrayed touchingly, while avoiding the sentimentality which disabled people rightly reject. Finally, the chapter briefly discusses the ethical issues raised in making a documentary which is inherently inaccessible to the very person whose life it depicts.