The Sweetest Sound

     The Sweetest Sound is a film about filmmaker, Alan Berliner, and his inquiry about the commonality of names, particularly his own.  The topics he chose to discuss in the film were things that most of us have gone through before, making it very interesting and easy to relate to.

     I liked how he began the film by talking about some of his ancestors and their names and supplementing that with old black and white photos and videos.  It didn’t matter whether these were family photos or stock images because they created a sense of authenticity.  (Although, he did make a statement during the middle of the credits asking viewers to contact him if they recognized anyone in the images he used.)  In addition, he set up the entire premise for the film very early on as he talked about unique and famous names in history and then how much it angered him to discover a group of people in the world who had been given his exact same name.  It bothers me too when I go to a place, give them my name and they reply with, “And which Ashley Powell are you?”  I mean how many of me could there be in the world?!  Yet, I still never gave this topic too much thought.

     The style of the film was very straightforward.  He captured some very honest opinions from interviewees and he was also honest himself.  If he didn’t like something, he said it on camera and didn’t edit it out.  It was interesting to hear other people talk about their name and having to share it with other people.  Some were very blunt and said that even those close to them bothered them a more when they had to “share” the same name.  As for the filmmaker, it wasn’t the use of his name Alan that bothered him, but rather when they had both his first and last name together.  That really bothered him.  He also interviewed random people to find out if they thought they might be a different person if they had been given a different name at birth. 

     I was impressed with how carefully he explored this topic.  On the surface, it seems difficult to make a feature length documentary about names, but he managed to explore a variety of facets within the topic.  He interviewed his parents to try to understand why they chose to name him Alan Berliner and they responded by saying that they really liked the name.  Also, once he contacted and met with the other men with his same name, he began to learn about each of them, trying to find similarities amongst the group.  For example, he asked each one about their occupation.  He also asked each to say the different ways that they have heard their name mispronounced.  However, one of my favorite parts of the film was at the end, when he shared one of his triumphs with viewers, showing that he had finally found something that only he had and no one else.  He had claimed alanberliner.com before anyone else could.