This is a film that feels like a direct descendant of The Man With the Movie Camera, shown in Cork in the year in which Vertov's masterwork was named best documentary ever made by Sight and Sound earlier on in the year. At the time of release, Vertov's film was highly criticised for its all too innovative style. Dummy Jim on the other hand seems to have been largely ignored, quite possibly because its nature and sensibilities to the deaf mute community have restricted its already potential audience and experimental filmmaking afficionados. But at heart, this is a film deeply influenced by creativity, that plays a lot with elements, with its mixture of film stock and shooting techniques as well as comfortably playing around with the filmmaking process itself by plainly revealing some of it and juggling with the time frames of present day to the times in which the journal was compiled.
The vivaciousness of the visual experimentation, sophisticated eye candy that even looks at its particulars and also includes the font of the subtitles, glorifies the aspect of film accessibility in admirable ways. But the work as a whole is a more complete sensory experience that also pays attention to sound effects, music which a times allows the viewer to fall into a deep trance - but once again can be appreciated by a deaf mute audience through bass tones that make the ground vibrate.
Away from the technical aspect and the knowledge of the fact that Dummy Jim took more than a decade for Hulse to lovingly compile, the story itself is quite universally inspiring. The filmmaker seems to pick out all the right aspect, even ones that sway away from being drawn out of the against all odd driving force of the feature - for instance, great observations are made about language and even history and humanity as a whole. This is where the interactive side of the piece comes into play and individual viewers will be able to experience the film in their own personal and unique way.
