Sound Of Metal - Darius Marder
This is part of my unedited thoughts series
At the heart of it, this is a simple story. A musician loses hearing, and this is the story of him coming to terms with that and his struggle to regain it.
The sheer terror that this must cause him is something else. You really feel for his steps and the desire to do anything to solve the problem.
The counter to this is there is no problem to solve. This is the argument put to him by the deaf community that he becomes part of.
We are brought in and out of his world through the brilliant use of audio design. This is only used at key moments and is fantastic. We get to hear what he is hearing, or the approximation of it. If this was used more it would be unbearable.
Another standout of this film is the casual way the story is told.
What I mean by that is what they choose not to tell us. They are not concerned with explaining all the details of the character’s world. We only learn what’s important, and even then only in broad strokes. It’s very Hemingway-esk in this regard. It’s very strong and more powerful because of it.
The establishment of Rueben and his relationship with his girlfriend, Lou. He is a caring partner and she is troubled and needs his love.
This is flipped when he loses his hearing. She is there for him but this is much bigger than anything she, or he could solve.
He gets unbelievably mad at her as she leaves him because he won’t join the deaf community. In leaving him she forces him to join them – and begin to navigate a path out of where he is.
I don’t think he is actually mad at her. But he is mad at the situation and terrified.
The way we see the loss playing out for him is spectacular. We go through the loss of hearing with him. He hear what he is hearing and can see the anguish as he tries to continue playing music after he has been told not to as it could mean he looses all the hearing he has left.
Rueben is focused on solving the problem of being deaf. When he joins the deaf community and they are focused on addressing the mental issues around the hearing loss and not the loss itself it is a real shock to him.
But he begins to deal with these issues as he joins the group and learns to sign. Some great relationships begin to form.
But then he sees Lou on the web and is drawn out of this world and wants to get his hearing back again.
This ends up costing him his place in the deaf community because of the disruption his trying to cure deafness will cause.
He ends up going through with the surgery and it is average at best. He thought that it would return him to perfect hearing but it is far from it. He can’t deal with crowds and the final scenes of him listening to Lou singing with her dad is heartbreaking. He cannot hear a thing really and this was his life with her.
This is a brilliant piece of filmmaking but I found it too sad to give it 10. It ends with acceptance but no hope. Rueben has lost everything and appears to accept his state at the end but it does feel hopeless for him.
