the history of sound

Oliver Hermanus's lovely The History of Sound requires patience in this bombastic time of ongoing screen distractors. Based upon a short story by Ben Shattuck, who also scripted, the film is shockingly staid from its outset (opening shots of water with a voiceover immediately conjures Robert Redford's A River Runs Through It), but gradually accumulates power throughout, ultimately finishing with a moving coda where ghosts of the past speak and sing.

The film is a good companion to, but a step up from Harmanus's last effort, Living, a remake of Akira Kurosawa's Ikiru, strangely distant despite Kazuo Ishiguro's screenplay and Bill Nighy and Aimee Lou Wood's elegant performances. The two leads here, Paul Mescal and Josh O'Connor, are both indelible in their roles; O'Connor in particular a stand-out, his sad eyes above his grin, communicating complicated emotions. 

Lionel (Mescal) and David (O'Connor) meet at the Boston Conservatory in a memorable scene in a bar full of elegantly suited New England men (the handsome costuming is by Miyako Bellizzi; I appreciated her subtle, unique work in this year's Bonjour Tristesse). Lionel overhears David playing folk music on a piano, reminding Lionel of his rural Kentucky roots. The two connect and fall in love. Their song "Silver Dagger" ultimately becomes the film's prescient love theme, its lyrics "All men are false" and "I can't be your bride," suggestive of fates to come (for them, and some of the women in their lives). 

Lionel and David end up doing research together, journeying through the deep backwoods of New England, recording songs from the voices of townsfolk along the way, including descendants of slaves, on wax cylinders. David is haunted by his experiences in war, which broke them apart for some time prior (war "made everything dimmer, cold," he says, a tear in his eye above campfire). Naturally, they drift apart. The film suggests a roaming restlessness in Lionel: we follow him through his early 1920s as moves to Italy to a stint at Oxford, and then, a journey back home again to his Kentucky farm. 

This steady, slowly-paced episodic tale is beautifully shot by Alexander Dynan (First Reformed, The Card Counter). Sometimes, however, with its unvaried, muted palate of taupe and gray, it's visually stifling, the surfaces of everything too clean (a sudden shot of a woman washing a grubby window is almost a relief). A few montages, well-edited by Chris Wyatt, provide some rhythm and narrative economy when the film occasionally goes slack.  From the perspective within this digital age of nowness, the powerful ending, highlighting the unbearable ache of loss and the vitality of history and preservation, lingers. ***

-Jeffery Berg

via Mubi