True Films 3.0 - Kevin Kelly

Genghis Blues
What a wonderful adventure. A blind blues singer in San Francisco hears
some strange music on a shortwave radio, and tracks it down as Tuvan
throatsinging. It sounds like a whistle and a groan at the same time,
and most people can’t believe it comes from one human mouth. Our
hero, Paul Pena, not only learns how to do it by reinventing it himself,
he also learns Tuvan language by translating English to Russian to Tuvan
in Braille! He then winds up getting invited to perform in the first Tuvan
throatsinging contest allowed after the breakup of the Soviet Union.
(Tuva, near Mongolia, is a small autonomous republic within the Russian
Federation.) The film starts here as it follows this blind black man into
the heart of Mongolia to try to win a horse by singing the Tuvan national
anthem while groaning two notes at once. It’s a wild and strange trip.
By Roko Belic
1999, 88 min.
Available from Amazon
Rent from Netflix
Since Paul is blind he uses his hands and
fingertips to “see” how his Tuvan host
sings the two simultaneous notes (left). After
he won the competition, Paul is obliged
to try out his prize – a horse (bottom). He
is incredibly uncomfortable on any horse.
Without vision he feels very vulnerable,
and asks to dismount immediately.
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