Soma Ghosh
, April 16th, 2021 09:53
Darius Marder's bold debut Sound of Metal asks the viewer to understand rock and deafness as two contradictory things – but it's a complex history, finds Soma Ghosh
‘Life is noise,’ reads the strapline to Darius Marder’s directorial debut
Sound of Metal, an unorthodox drama about a drummer who loses his hearing. It opens with screeching, turbulent guitar feedback, as a grunge heavy metal duo perform a quaking gig. Lou (a nervy performance by Olivia Cooke), lead singer and guitarist, screams orgasmically: ‘Purify!’ Her lover, Ruben (an acting masterclass in wild-man sensitivity by Riz Ahmed), drums like a stoned wizard, wreathed in a halo of spit and sweat. To these two, silence might feel like death – and death haunts their love and art; a tattoo of crossed pistols on Reuben’s chest reads ‘Please kill me’. Yet this film asserts the beauty of silence. The sound design immerses us in the surf of Ruben’s ears, forcing the undeaf onto Marder’s subtitles, or leaving hearing suspended, making us question how we use noise to avoid life.