Directed by:
Darius MarderCinematography:
Daniël BouquetCast:
Riz Ahmed, Olivia Cooke, Paul Raci, Mathieu Amalric, Lauren Ridloff, Tom Kemp, Hillary Baack, Michael Tow, Chelsea Lee, Shaheem Sanchez, Chris Perfetti (more)Plots(1)
In Sound of Metal, a tale of sound, fury, and self-discovery, Riz Ahmed delivers an intensely committed performance as the volatile Ruben, who has found new purpose as a drummer in a noise-metal duo, playing blistering live shows with his singer girlfriend, Lou (Olivia Cooke). When Ruben suddenly loses much of his hearing, he is launched on a profound odyssey—through denial, anger, grief, and, gradually, acceptance—as he comes to understand what it means to live as a deaf person and to discover deafness as not a disability but a rich culture and community. Through stunningly immersive, Academy Award–winning sound design, director Darius Marder invites us to experience the world as Ruben does, capturing a sonic spectrum in which silence comes in a thousand shades. (Criterion)
(more)Reviews (5)
The powerful story of a heavy-metal drummer who loses his hearing, inspired by a true story. Ahmed’s acting recital is supported by work with sound, which jumps back and forth between general reality and how the central protagonist hears things. Joing the community of the hard of hearing and self-searching is very well presented. The image of the deaf drummer beating a tin slide that a deaf child has his ear pressed onto is a powerful one. In the end, the title Sound of Metal is a cynical play on words, suggesting that metalheads might all be doomed to hear just a tinny echo for the rest of their lives. I can’t fucking hear you!
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The difficulty of getting used to deafness (not only) during rehab in a community. Very intimate and naturalistic indie festival-fodder, primarily thanks to the engaging (and, tempting as it may be, not for a moment overplaying) Ahmed and his work with all that "noisy silence"; that is, the de-noising, the tinnitus, the whistling in the ears, the implant rustling and the contrast to the amplified sounds of everyday life that we take for granted. It revels in lingering silent close-ups of faces while an irritating whistle blares in your ears. Yes, this makes it slow and idiosyncratic, but unprecedentedly immersive given the medium; it's worth watching with headphones. Perhaps it didn't have to be so cold, detached and predictable; you know exactly where it's going to go and what scene it's going to end with. Overall, one can hardly help feeling that this is exactly the kind of film where, when you mention its title, your first association is "two-hour gala performance of Riz Ahmed" rather than anything else.
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Last year, I saw a film starring Riz Ahmed called Mogul Mowgli, which at first glance is very similar to Sound of Metal, as it also tells the story of a musician who suddenly has to deal with a new stage in his life affected by his health. I liked Sound of Metal a little more in the end, though, mainly because of the story line involving the deaf help centre – Paul Raci and the other "deaf actors" were excellent. But the film was mainly an acting opportunity for Ahmed, who gives a convincing performance, with Olivia Cooke complementing him brilliantly. Personally, I would have been happy to relegate (or leave out entirely) the sequence with the father – fifteen to twenty minutes less running time would not have hurt the film – or to have given more attention to the deaf centre. Still, this is a solidly filmed and acted drama about the fact that we don't necessarily need to hear many important things, we just need to sit down for a moment and listen to our inner self.
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It's lures you in by pretending to be something it's not, since there's virtually no metal music going on here. Somehow we initially wade through some quality sludge that comes from the musical project Jucifer, who were originally the protagonists of an unfinished documentary from Marder with the same theme as this. Sound of Metal is mainly about the problem of a former drug addict who managed to reformat his addictive tendencies into the intense music that a hearing impairment has now taken from him, and thus his struggle not to fall back into his old vices. Sic halfway through it gets a bit bogged down in the classic clichés about someone who didn't want something at first but then tried it and after a while found that it was actually good, so even though the setting the film explores is portrayed believably (it's clear from the concert scenes that Marder is no stranger to alternative foreign filth, and in the therapeutic compound we're again surrounded by their real inhabitants) and it's well acted. I've been passively watching Riz Ahmed almost since his acting beginnings, and I'm delighted to see him finally getting roles that require more than just a freaky Arab, and especially how perfectly he can handle them.
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An American festival film that will unfortunately escape a wide audience. I say unfortunately because such a high-quality cinematic achievement deserves more attention. You don't need to be a fan of metal; sure, it plays a role here, but the most important and central theme is hearing loss, which Riz Ahmed portrays with notable skill. I haven’t seen such a deeply felt role in a long time; he truly seems to have left a piece of his soul on the set, as the result grips your heart. A major strength of the film is that it doesn’t try to manipulate your emotions excessively. There are emotionally charged moments, yes, but it doesn’t wring you out like a rag. Another undeniable merit is the work with sound (I would recommend turning up the volume; otherwise, you might miss many nuances in this regard), and I feel it deserves at least a nomination for an Oscar. The ending showed me what a perfectly closed film looks like. I’m thrilled; I didn’t expect such quality, and it makes me even happier. For me, it’s an 8.5/10.
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