This poetically-narrated, beautifully-visualized short film offers a glimpse into the world of an exceptional teenager and a poignant documentation of her inspiring story. It is a testament to director Julio Palacio's insightfulness that Makayla's Voice: A Letter to the World is kept to 24 minutes, especially in an age of overly-long documentaries. In that amount of time, the film conveys the very special person Makayla is, and the shock her parents felt when she first began communicating via a letterboard at age 14.
It turns out Makayla is intelligent and deeply thoughtful, nearly a poet. "I dream of one day hearing my voice," she says (via an actor's voiceover). Makayla compares feeling trapped inside her body to the way the artist Van Gogh felt trapped inside his emotions. He used color to communicate while Makalya sees color in emotions and actions: "my soul sees what others cannot." Palacio dexterously visualizes these themes and ideas through a variety of techniques, from animation to on-camera interviews, from daily footage to lyrical images of nature that very nearly match the poetry of Makayla's words.
Read the full review on Common Sense Media.
Images courtesy of Netflix.
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