At first glance, you might think that this family shares together the joy of singing while they practice their usual day in the fishing profession; Ruby sings, her voice mingling with the sounds of waves and birds around her; Those birds alone share the pleasure, but her brother and father are engaged in hunting, smiling at her happiness without knowing what she is saying or listening to him, but that alone is enough to work. Far away on Angela Rose’s boat, a deaf family is noisy and loud; By spontaneity they create their own happiness.
It’s their usual life and in this way Ruby continues her inseparable life from the family; without considering a real choice concerning her future alone; It’s something you’re not familiar with and you couldn’t even think about.
CODA movie story
CODA won the 2022 Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay, a remake of the 2014 French film La Famille Belier. It tells the story of the Belier family, who are deaf and have a naturally gifted daughter in music, who is encouraged by a music professor to complete her studies, so she is placed between the decision to leave the family. The study of music. But the French film did not deepen that relationship between the daughter and the family and lacks that intimacy in its characters, especially the music teacher, who seems very cruel and strange, and the film did not approach his characters emotionally as we feel in Koda.
Ruby is a teenager whose own ambition and future destiny has not yet been formed. She is a peaceful girl who sings because she loves to sing. The music teacher shows admiration for her talent from the beginning, so he sets her eyes on the Berklee College of Music, which Ruby does not know and does not feel very enthusiastic about.
But Ruby learned since her childhood how her soul listens to music and sounds and observes them, as her family, who are neutral in the direction of sounds in life, also disturb the simplest things, which made her tend to the opposite, which are the regular and harmonious sounds that affect her and bring her different feelings of sadness, joy and pleasure
But life tests Ruby in the most difficult situation, which is to decide between her primary success in life and her desire to put the closest to her in safety without the need for anyone and without abandoning or evading that emotional and moral responsibility, which is their care.
And that girl who has experienced family warmth, containment and bonding, it is difficult to pursue her dreams while her compass in life is missing.
It’s something we can do together as a family – if you want to fight, fight with those haters, we stay together as a family. Ruby is used to hearing these phrases and they are as much interconnected as they create loneliness and detachment from the outside world; Ruby’s mother was born deaf and did not learn to communicate with her mother, so she met all of Ruby’s attempts with mockery and disbelief, lacking the desire to support the daughter because she would be separated from them.
During Ruby’s concert and her first singing in front of them, her parents discuss in the form of shirt buttons.
Which makes those characters in her family characterized by rigidity and dependence as a result of excessive protection, especially as they suffer like any normal person, unlike recently what was in the movie “Sound of Metal”, which dealt with the idea of deafness in a dramatic and impressive manner, where Robin suddenly lost his ability to hear, which made his feelings tend to weakness and anger for a shock that he did not accept it.
Riz Ahmed says about that experience that (the culture of the deaf is an identity, it is a rich culture, and we have a lot to learn about it, not because of the deaf, but thanks to it).
The movie CODA is not a movie about weakness, but how can we overcome it with lightness and simple characters through a story that makes us feel familiar and comfortable, despite the expectation of the story. Power exercised by his sister Ruby. (We’re not helpless, I’m your big brother, we’re not stupid, they’ll wait for you to do everything) But he still looks ostracized with a worried look.
Where the deaf often suffers in his childhood from rejection, lack of self-confidence and a weak ability to form friendships, which makes him lack the ability to communicate with others and distort his concept of himself, especially unless his parents provide him with a permanent inspection of his needs, as his mother Jackie always saw him as oppressed in his destiny.
