The Hiss - Review
Every so often I am truly captivated by a story and it reminds me of what us humans do best. I am not necessarily talking about the stories that come to life on the stage, in multi-award winning picture, or in the pages of a bestselling novel. All stories start at the level of conversation, between storyteller and listener.
Humans have communicated through telling stories since time immemorial. Storytelling is how we create connection, shape our understanding of the world and one another. Stories give us a sense of what is possible. The ritual of telling stories existed before the written word, nevermind the advanced technologies we have now created to share narratives across the world in a matter of seconds. Storytelling has always been integral to the human condition.
The most well-documented stories provide a clear beginning, middle and end because in this form they are easiest to recount. The trope of the happy ending, epitomised by America’s Hollywood, gives us pleasure exactly because our own lives never fall so neatly into place. We know really that endings are almost always never the end.
So what happens to the stories that stray from the traditional narrative arc? That defy explanation, but nonetheless are arresting to the extent they deserve to be shared?
Four of them have been captured by independent producer James Kim in his podcast The Hiss which looks at curious and important moments in the lives of individuals. Kim’s project points to the modern preoccupation with cataloguing memories, which has only intensified with the rise of digital media, coming to define this cultural epoch. This is in fact the theme of first episode in which a woman who has lost her father, a man who had lived his life furiously documenting every waking moment, finds a recording of an exorcism among his possessions and shares the strange story of how he came to make it.
In another case a man recounts his sister’s struggle with mental illness and how dance serves as her escape. We hear a grandson record his grandparents, who have Alzheimer’s, at various points of memory loss. We contemplate the supernatural when a mystic describes how her intuition has isolated her from society.
Kim stays clear of the limelight and is only audible when necessary, asking a handful of leading questions. We don’t hear much of him, but the level of detail his speakers reveal, and the calm nature in which they do so, suggests he is a sensitive and insightful interviewer.
Speech is underscored by a compelling original score to enhance tension, suspense and emotion. Other than this music which only serves the narrative, these stories remain raw; imperfect in their telling, and wholly captivating in their truth.
The podcast does not afford us the satisfaction of a neat ending which, intentional or not, is it’s genius. We are left contemplating moments never to be elucidated, and the lives of people for whom these events shaped their reality. The Hiss reminds us that it is impossible to capture the ephemeral. But for the sake of those for whom these stories are deeply signifiant, and for curious listeners like myself, the importance of trying to preserve it anyway.
You can listen to The Hiss here.
