Gripping: Name Me Lawand reviewed

You’d have to have a heart of stone to not be moved by Name Me Lawand. It’s a documentary about a Kurdish boy, deaf since birth, who has lived a lonely, isolated and shut-in life until he learns British Sign Language and slowly starts to blossom and reveal who he is. (Who are we without language?) There is only one big release this week – Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One, which I couldn’t see in time for my deadline anyhow – but this small film has to be more affecting than any mission that turns out to be possible in the end. Unless, that is, your heart is one of the stony ones.

The film is impressionistic and observational. It does not give us specific facts, which can be frustrating. But it wants to immerse us in Lawand’s world, and it does so grippingly. He is around six at the outset.