Rob Munday
As someone who spends a lot of his working life putting words on the page, I hold a heightened appreciation for the significance of language. However, Omi Zola Gupta and Sparsh Ahuja’s exquisite short documentary, Birdsong, serves as a poignant reminder of the elements of life we often overlook. Exploring the dying whistling language of the Hmong people of northern Laos, this 18-min doc offers a solemn tribute to a fading cultural heritage and a vital documentation of a mode of communication that teeters on the brink of extinction.
“Language literally shapes the way you look at the world”, Ahuja states as we discuss the aims of their short and it’s a subject the pair have been interested in for a long time. As a period of research led them to uncover information regarding a region between the north-east of India and south-east Asia’s mountain ranges, which contained people communicating by some of the most sophisticated whistled languages in the world, this discovery would become the focal point for their documentary.
“Our continued interest in language and sound drew us to cultures of whistled language practices in Asia”, Gupta shares.
Finding motivation to create a film exploring “the importance of sound and human/non-human relationships” after watching Shaunak Sen’s All That Breathes at Sundance 2022, their project gained much needed momentum after winning The Listening Pitch at the Aesthetica short film festival. With this financing secured, the filmmaking pair were able to connect with collaborators in Laos, who would prove vital to gaining access to the Long Lan village where the film was shot.
Over a six-week production period the duo got to know their collaborators by spending time with them over meals, in their workshops and homes, gaining their trust and building a level of comfort that would make the shoot easier. However, the one thing that was never going to be easy was the translation of the whistle language, which in the end required a four-step process – from whistled Hmong, to spoken Hmong, then to Lao and then finally English.
“In terms of the visual style we were inspired by works of Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Bi Gan, and Taiwanese New Wave filmmakers”, Gupta reveals.
“The Hmong whistling tradition emerged as a practical solution to communicating across long distances, as high-pitched sounds would echo across the valleys in the Mekong Delta”, Ahuja explains as we discuss the difficulties of recording this language for their film. “With technology, they now have far more practical methods of communication”, he adds, revealing that their translator had even joked: “he could now flirt over WhatsApp, so why whistle?”.
Beneath the surface of that amusing sentiment lies a more sombre truth – the younger generations of Hmong people are gradually losing their ability to speak the whistled language. It is this poignant aspect of preserving a crucial piece of heritage that elevates Birdsong to a significant and insightful work of filmmaking. Gupta and Ahuja’s short is not only beautifully shot and transportive, it becomes particularly impactful due to the opportunity it allows to spend time with the individuals in the film and observe their unique methods of communication.
It would be heartbreaking if the whistled language of the Hmong died out, but hopefully through films like Birdsong we can highlight the importance of these cultural traditions and ensure they are never forgotten.