Sound of Noise

Viewed at the Festival du Film, Cannes 2010

Now that you've read the plot summary... Okay, a group of drummers terrorise a city with their daring musical 'raids' while a tone deaf, music hating, detective tries to track them down... The Sound of Noise is the kind of dark comedic madness only the Scandinavians do so well: percussionists as musical terrorists laying down the beat for an entire city.

This is a conceit built around the musicians themselves, taking several of their set-piece numbers and weaving them into a narrative structure. In this sense, seen as a film with the classic three act structure, story and character development etc., Sound of Noise is less successful. But as a showcase for amazing musical ability and sheer imagination, this film cannot be beaten.

Sound of Noise (2010)

An absurdist, zany, intense, unpredictable film. Rather amazing, really, if you can let go of an ordinary sense of plot and progression.

At the center is a group of drummers who agree to perform a series of pieces by a cutting edge composer all around the city. But their instruments become found objects, heavy machinery, office items, hospital equipment (and hospital patient), so that their performances are intrusive, dangerous, illegal, and wonderfully outrageous.

And funny. Sometimes you laugh aloud, sometimes you just are amused and amazed.

In opposition to this group is a detective who grew up in a family of musicians but who is tone deaf. And he as a special ability to track the musical perps in their crimes--which you'll see.

Kudos should also go to the filmmakers themselves, who make this craziness very fluid and beautiful. Contemporary Stockholm is shown as complex and beautiful and modern and not a Swedish Ikea stereotype.

Finally there is a kind of interpersonal plot that is sort of fun and thin and helps hold the various performance pieces together. Maybe anything more intense on this score would have watered down the absurdist heights of the best of it, but this subplot does have a feel-good pops quality that the rest of the movie avoids. And it's the rest of the movie--mainly the "music" as it happens before your eyes--that is what counts. Great stuff!

Amadeus Warnebring is a police detective. He is tone-deaf from birth despite coming from a family of extraordinary musicians. As such, he has a complicated and distasteful relationship with music. Sanna and Magnus lead a group of underground musicians looking for new sounds. They break into a hospital and play a famous patient. Amadeus is brought in to investigate the "terrorists".

This is much more fun on the page. The musical capers have a certain energy but they do get tired by the end. The deadpan humor is not the funniest but I see what they're trying for. It has great originality and the percussive fun of the Blue Man Group. Full marks for the idea if not for the execution.

My husband and I saw this tonight at the Seattle International Film Festival and we can't wait to be able to share it with our friends. The story is simple but endlessly creative: a group of musicians attempt to bring music to a city while a police officer attempts to get some much-needed peace and quiet.

We enjoyed the touches of whimsy and magic and were increasingly impressed by each successive musical experiment. The dialogue, the visual cues, and, yes, the music itself kept us riveted to the screen. The movie was received well by the audience, who rewarded it with hearty laughter in many places and a long round of applause at the end.

This film can be appreciated by everyone, from the highly musical (myself) to the tone-deaf (my husband)!

This movie is pure joy, musically and cinematically. Just the idea of having six drummers as terrorists, using everyday objects as instruments is so brilliant it doesn't even matter how good or bad the movie is. Fortunately this movie does great at both having an original idea, great characters and beautiful cinematography. The musical numbers is of course awesome, but also the plot line involving the policeman Warnebring is brilliant. You really feel for the character, even if he starts of as the bad guy(kind of), and you also root for him sometimes, even though he tries to stop the musicians. This is an amazing movie experience that I can recommend for everyone who has a heart(cheesy,but true), and can enjoy great cinema.