Sound of Noise

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)!

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.

The first scene in the car is unforgettable and brilliant. The character intros are clichés but work well and bring out assured laughs. The premise is far-fetched but ingenious. Art and music terrorism is well explored and the points well taken, although the anarchist approach relies too much on the opposition to classical music in my taste as opposed to perhaps seeing it as an extension or evolution. Classical music is demonized and various forms of pop are frown upon, yet the final song which may be the best one is a popish bossa nova ballad.

The acts of terrorism are in 4 acts of a musical mastermind mayhem. The first one works the best in all aspects and especially musically while the 3 others like the rest of the movie starts to drag. Narratively, some elements are very weak and even if it is a wacky comedy makes for uninteresting moments and unreal connections. I was annoyed at many situations, reactions and characters which may be the case for some viewers.

However this film should still be seen for its inventive premise and many memorable scenes. Some scenes are beautiful and some are truly laugh out loud funny. Have a look at it and decide if you want to fast-forward some of it or claim it to be the next best thing like the Young Critics at Cannes and many others did.

And let there be silence.

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???