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.

"Music for an apartment and six drummers" has reached so called cult status on Youtube. Here is a full length version of the same idea. You can use a hospital patient as percussion, you an surely also use bank note destroyers for the same purpose, not to talk about caterpillars.

True drum anarchy and if you're into this kind of humour, you will find this incredibly funny. The plot is thin, on purpose, and includes a tone deaf police inspector. He's coming after the percussion terrorists.

This Swedish movie really has its chances to be some kind of cult hit abroad. But you must like rhythm.

Sound of Noise actually manages the very rare feat of laying out a unique spin on the detective/police procedural format. Oh the elements are there, there's a cop, there's a band of "terrorists" who are always two steps ahead, there's a personal connection between the acts of the terrorists and the detective's home life, there's a very neat cat and mouse game between the detective and the leader of the terrorists (who happens to be a blond woman) but of course the fact that the band of terrorists are all frustrated musicians and that the act of terror they're spreading is musical based (they get together at various locations and "play" any object that's around--staging these very performance art like set pieces in areas and pretty much annoying the heck out of everyone who happens to be around) This movie is definitely far more original then any other cop movie is these days. (well any that i can think of as of the time i'm writing this at least) Of course none of that originality wouldn't mean anything if the pacing of the movie weren't tight, or if the lead character's personal life weren't also interesting, or if the suspense of what the detective is actually going to do once he captures this band of terrorists (or even if he wants to capture them given his personal background) I have to give a lot of credit to this movie for being pretty original in that even with a well worn format i still had little idea where the movie was ultimately going to go--and if the last ten or twenty minutes don't exactly play out the way you'd like them to--that's pretty OK because quite honestly i'm not sure i could've come up with a better ending either. (and really the more i think about it the more i quite like the ending--it very much matches the tone and events of what came before and what we've come to know about the 2 leading characters throughout the movie) Will this movie hold up on repeat viewing? i'd like to think so--even if the frustrated musical terrorists ultimately become annoying---i really really really quite enjoyed the detective's back story and how his back story plays into his need to capture this band of terrorists. Its actually kind of a cute love story in a way, a bizarre one, but definitely a cute one. About that background of the cop tho---when you read the following sentence--you're reaction to it should indicate whether you'd be charmed or annoyed by this film. The lead detective happens to not especially care for music because he comes from a family of well known music lovers--his brother is a conductor for the local symphony while he himself is rather tone deaf and clueless about what makes good music--so of course it should fall to him to stop this musical band of terrorists from spreading their own brand of "music" around town. I'm telling you right now--if that bit of whimsy makes you wanna hit your computer screen then this movie is definitely not for you--but then again what are you doing looking at these user comments here in the first place if not to check this one out a little bit???

Give credit to Sound of Noise: despite dealing with such lofty themes such as the nature of music and its performance, it never becomes unnecessarily arty or academic. Instead, the movie has loads of quirky humour and an energetic plot, driven by a group of drummers-become-art-terrorists and their plan of turning everyday urban soundscapes into avant-garde percussion pieces. Bengt Nilsson does a nice performance as Amadeus Warnebring, a manic, tone-deaf and music-hating offspring of a family of classical pianists and conductors. The drummers are presented pretty much as caricatures of progressive musicians, but as such they're spot-on and funny. Even though the film-makers' sympathies are clearly on the side of the drummers, they're not above making gentle fun of avant-garde's excesses, and they're also surprisingly understanding of Warnebring's desire to live in a world of silence, with no music. The plot of the movie is slight, with some key elements left unexplained, but its fast-paced and constantly entertaining execution makes up for that. At the heart of Sound of Noise are the percussion pieces performed by the drummers, and they do not disappoint. The four performances seen in the film are awe-inspiring in their mise-en-scène, sound design and editing. For those scenes alone, Sound of Noise would be worth a view; as a whole, it's a quirky but easily-digested piece of pop art.

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!