Voice over paraphernalia

With or Without You (dear voice over)

 

Just back from the FIPRESCI Jury at the outstanding 65^th Kracow International Film Festival of Documentaries and short films, and I find myself astounded by the almighty use of voice over in several documentaries our Jury had to analyse.

 

Voice over was once a fundamental part of nonfiction filmmaking, but today many filmgoers seem to perceive it as antiquated, manipulative, and even offensive. When used intentionally and with self-awareness, the type of voice over with a didactic, authoritative feel can seem contrary to current storytelling sensibilities.

 

Today’s audiences are attuned to tone. If voice over is overdone, it conflicts with the film’s rhythm and adds to a lack of immersion. If overwritten, it sounds like a script being read, rather than a life lived. If too emotional or analytical, it undermines the intimacy with visuals, silence or raw sound design provides in a natural way.

The modern psyché functions on fragmentation and multiplicity of voices, not one “truth” provided from above.

The modern spectator wants the filmmaker to be a fellow author with subject, as opposed to a central one.

 

Both “Silver”, a new documentary about a Bolivian village of silver miners and their rich mountain ground, and “Tata” by Lina Vaduvii, impress to the bone, but they do so in significantly different ways—each reflecting the thematic core and emotional tone of their respective films.

 

"Silver" is a very lyrical and contemplative documentary, marked by visual symbolism and emotional subtlety. It depicts the lives of silver miners who dwell in a village at the base of Cerro Rico ("The Rich Mountain") in Bolivia.

 

The film's subjects are not provided as individualized protagonists who are resolved through tidy arcs, but fragments of a collective existence that exists and is produced by the place they exist beneath and work inside. Koniarz allows the daily rhythms of the mining community to speak for themselves: waking before dawn, entering the dark and twisting tunnels, caring for children, and offering coca leaves to "El Tío," the spirit of the mine.

 

These are individuals whose dreams are often not chosen, but inherited.

There is an implicit understanding that mining is not a job, but a destiny, a commitment that is thrust upon them by circumstance, and as close to a ritual as one could imagine.

 

For many of the younger characters, there is a push and pull of hope and entrapment. They might dream of going to school, or escaping, or simply lasting longer than the life expectancy of their fathers—but still, they come to understand that their dreams will be quietly restrained by the gravity of tradition, the pull of poverty, and the mountain’s glittering promise.

 

Koniarz is careful not to sentimentalize their lives.

As the miners pick away, they appear both proud and fatigued, their fortunes possibly laying within the rock itself. Their tie to the land is both spiritual and financial. In this sense, the film depicts something rarely represented outside of sympathy or spectacle: an image of deprivation that still suggests, autonomy, mythology and endurance.

 

Visually, “Silver” is beautifully composed, shaped by cinematography that views documentary as a sort of visual poetry.

 

The camera often lingers—on faces, on the mineral shimmer of the mountain, on the slow exhalation of dust from a mine shaft. Koniarz and her cinematographer employ a muted, almost metallic color palette, echoing the silver ore that defines the region’s identity and fate.

 

Koniarz' style takes us from still, painterly frames in which characters are often framed in wide, wide shots, accentuating their littleness in grand, beautiful landscapes, to darkness and light.

 

The mines themselves are claustrophobic and dimly lit, compared to the blinding, harsh light of the mountain, to add to the light/dark motif of labor/hope; living/death. 

 

"Silver"s non-verbal storytelling engenders much of the emotional resonance that comes from gesture, silence, and image rather than from dialogue.  Koniarz trusts the visual to do the emotional heavy lifting, and it pays off.

 

What makes “Silver” emotionally powerful and rare is its lack of manipulation. The film does not seek to shock, or instruct the viewer; it simply observes in reverence, carefully placing the viewer in a position of absorbing emotional truths, buried in the dust and rock beneath the surface. Its restraint allows it power.

There's a melancholic peace throughout the film—a recognition of the mountain that gives and takes, blesses and destroys.

 

The emotional core is in the contradictions: the young boy laughing on the hilltop, oblivious to his likely fate...the old miner blessing the dark as he goes into it again...the women cooking and waiting in silence.

 

Koniarz finds the sacred ordinariness of these lives, making "Silver" almost mythical; yet grounded entirely in the real—real people, real boundaries, real strength.

“Silver” is a film that exposes the soul within stone. Its figures carry dreams so delicate they cannot be spoken. Their destinies are shaped by forces older than themselves.

Through beautiful visuals and quiet respect, director Natalia Koniarz builds an elegy for lives lived under the burden of beauty and burden.

 

It is a story not of triumph, nor tragedy, but something rare: a story that covers beings as they are deeply felt and powerfully witnessed.

 

The absence of voiceover in Natalia Koniarz's “Silver” is more than a stylistic choice, it makes a serious statement about how to see, feel, and listen to what the film shows.

By not layering an external narrated voice on the film, Koniarz allows the people and the landscape to speak for themselves. The sounds of tools clinking together, the breathing in the mines, the soft hum and murmur of rituals - all of this sounds far more honest and impactful than the words of a narrator ever could.

The miners are no longer interpreted for us; they are simply witnessed.

Their dignity and struggle are relayed, not through commentary or editorial irritations of the film, but rather through raw observational intimacy.

This places resistance to the colonial tendency to speak about, rather than with, marginalized people, and creates a space of respect to simply be with them.

 

The emotional impact of this cinematic encounter arises out of what is left out. Long takes of miners working, the deep loneliness of the mountain, the quiet endurance of daily gestures, all contribute to a growing emotional complexity and depth that narration would only dilute.

The absence of voiceover leads the viewer to dwell in discomfort, beauty, and ambiguity.

This creates spaces for emotion to arise, not because we are told to feel, rather we are left to feel it ourselves.

 

The result is a kind of cinematic empathy, deeper and more lasting than any narrated explanation could have offered. Using voice-over would have introduced an artificial layer that contradicts the film’s deeper commitment to voicelessness—not as absence, but as eloquence.

The earth doesn’t speak in words, nor do the tunnels, the dust, or the ghosts of history. Koniarz honors that silence. This harmony between form and content makes the lack of narration not just appropriate, but essential.

In “Silver”, the "voice-over" is limited to a few typed phrases, with an observational tone, noting only facts. It offers contextual information about the mountain's colonial history and its economic symbolism, but also delves into the spiritual or mythical associations the miners have with the mountain—sometimes referred to as "El Tio."

 

“Tata”takes more poetic license with voice-over—personal and introspective, blurry and often overused, functioning as the equivalent of diary or intimate confab. Lina Vaduvii, as both director and narrator, works through her voice-over her personal relationship and dealing with the categories of dad or "Tata," while more broadly, masculinity, memory, and post-Soviet identity.

 

Her voice-over is fragmented and emotional, inviting the audience into an internal dialogue rather than offering a linear narrative. It’s marked by hesitation, ambiguity, and reflection—mirroring the emotional complexity of the father-daughter dynamic.

Here the voice-over functions more like a personal excavation—an emotional investigation into family, legacy, and identity.

Hers is fragmented and emotional; it feels more like we are invited into an internal dialogue rather than just a related linear narrative. Hers is filled with regrets and uncertainty, all reflections of the complexity of the father-daughter relationship.

 

“Tata” uses intimate, verité-style visuals and creates a layering effect with the voice-over. Oftentimes, Tata’s voice-over either works to bolster the emotional weight of the visuals or acts as a contradiction of them. 

The intimacy of the voice-over is echoed in the intimacy of the camera work.

“Tata”'s voice-over invites viewers into a private emotional space. It isn't necessarily explanatory or contextualizing, but rather more about vulnerability and emotional excavation.

Yet rather than allowing the beholder space to arrive at their own emotional conclusions, the voice-over tends to over-determine the meaning of the scenes.

The narrative voice-over argues for us what to feel when the protagonist reacts in silence, anger, tenderness, and that diminishes what capabilities of rawness exist within the visual material.

The narration conveys an intellectual control that can be cold even as it engages with painful or intimate memories. Instead of increasing empathy, it often flattens it– reminding the viewer of the filmmaker's authorship at moments when we may have wanted to sit quietly with the father, the "Tata" on his own terms.

 

Indeed, the author's presence is the emotional anchor of the film, but it is also its limitations. 

The filmmaker’s attempt to interrogate and make sense of her father's emotional distance comes from a place of brave vulnerability. That said, it is also highly mediated, voice-driven and designed to be grounded in her own metacognition– which is somewhat isolating and often times proceeds without a ton of room for audience engagement with the complexities of this father-daughter relationship.

Rather than opening a shared emotional space, the narration feels like a closed loop. It feels less like invitation, and more like confession. The confessional element can feel performative at time especially when it is layers over visual frames that already communicate so much: a look, a pause, a moment of awkward tenderness.

 

The father, who is called “Tata,” is a powerful figure: taciturn, proud, mysterious. He seems to offer some version of post-Soviet masculinity that is rigid and detached, emotionally stunted but not unfeeling. His displays of vulnerability—uncomfortable attempts at connection, brief moments of regret or warmth—are incredibly poignant. However, because the voice-over often interprets or clarifies this meaning for us, it makes the moment(s) feel less powerful.

Moments of connection (a shared joke, a recounted story) are granted access to feeling, and moments of absence (emotional blankness, silence, regret) are often pre-digested for meaning. We are told what it means before we are allowed to feel it.

 

“Tata” visually leans into a lo-fi, personal archive style: handheld camera work, dark domestic spaces, muted colors. There is a strong use of stillness and observational framing that could signal emotional depth and tension, but the narration rises to bring the viewer back into a narrative that has less authenticity.

The editing is gentle, almost reluctant, and the score minimal, creating what could be a hauntingly intimate ambiance.

 

Yet, this potential of style is undermined by the narrative demand for explanation. This mismatch of style - emotionally-rich visuals; emotionally didactic narration, becomes disconnected.

 Empathy in documentary cinema often emerges when audiences are given room to observe, interpret, and feel on their own. In “Tata” the voice-over attempts to protect us, keeping us tethered to the author’s interpretation and not letting the audience form their own.

Even the narration slips into something more analytical than emotional, more intellectual than lived. This pulls breaks on the emotional line.

 

Silence and ambiguity are tools that can be quite powerful in a documentary story. Here, these moments are filled too quickly with explanation or reflection. We feel the authorial dominance quite strongly: Vaduvi’s control of a story—her framing of the story and her voice driving the story—though not entirely separate from the father’s voice and the father’s presence, leads to the father being reduced to an object of analysis rather than taking part in the shared experience.

 

“Tata” is a courageous film, a deeply personal film - but a film burdened but its narration too. The voice-over was clearly designed to elicit an intimacy, an introspection as well, but its analytical tone created distance instead of intimacy, or empathy.

The visual language of the film and the emotional framework of the film could have said so much more. In explaining, “Tata” perhaps risked saying so much less than silence could.

 

Giulia Dobre

FIPRESCI JURY at KFF 2025

05.06.2025