Sound of Metal
A fascinating study of hearing loss as a musician enters a world of silence.
Riz Ahmed
Sound of Metal
tells the story of Ruben Stone. He is a drummer with a heavy metal band
and lives with the band’s singer, Lou, their home being a recreational
vehicle, a trailer that drives them from gig to gig. When Ruben
suddenly experiences a loss of hearing, a doctor finds that he has only
about thirty per cent of his hearing. Eventually he is sent to a
community of deaf members, adults and children, run by a deaf reformed
alcoholic called Joe. Ruben settles in with them and begins to learn
American sign language as well as teaching the kids to play drums. As
Lou is away with her own music in Paris, Ruben sells off his equipment
in order to afford surgery on his ears. However, life for him is just
not that simple.
Debut writer-director Darius Marder was inspired by Derek Cianfrance’s unfinished documentary Metalhead
on the drummer in the band Jucifer who had ruptured his eardrums. The
film remained abandoned but Marder took the basic idea for Sound of Metal.
What he has achieved is quite remarkable as he gives the audience the
sounds that Ruben can hear or only hear in a distorted fashion. Marder
manages to evoke how isolated the deaf can feel when they cannot
communicate properly. Sound engineers Philip Bladh and Nicolas Becker
have literally fine-tuned the sound elements, making them hideously
distorted.
Riz Ahmed gives a magnificently selfless
performance as Ruben, initially full of disbelief when he cannot hear
his own voice, followed by the anger and frustration it brings him.
Sympathetic ears are offered by Olivia Cooke as his girlfriend Lou, by
Paul Raci as the head of the deaf community, and by Mathieu Amalric as
Lou’s French father. It is a real winner of a film that has already
secured many awards all over the US.
MICHAEL DARVELL
Cast:
Riz Ahmed, Olivia Cooke, Paul Raci, Lauren Ridloff, Mathieu Amalric,
Domenico Toledo, Chelsea Lee, Shaheem Sanchez, Chelsea Lee.
Dir Darius Marder, Pro Bill Benz, Kathy Benz and Sacha Ben Harroche, Screenplay Darius Marder and Abraham Marder, from a story by Marder and Derek Cianfrance, Ph Daniel Bouquet, Pro Des Jeremy Woodward, Ed Mikkel E. G. Nielsen, Music Nicholas Becker and Abraham Marder, Costumes Megan Stark Evans.
Caviar/Ward Four/Flat 7-Amazon Studios/Vertigo Releasing.
101 mins. USA. 2019. Rel: 26 March 2021. Available on Amazon Prime Video. Cert. 15.