DVD Review: SOUND OF NOISE Is Music To Your Ears!

If ever there was a film built for ScreenAnarchy, Ola Simonsson and Johannes Stjärne Nilsson's Sound of Noise is definitely one. I don't throw that kind of praise around willy-nilly, in fact, the last film I gave such high marks was my number one film of 2011, Alex de la Iglesia's The Last Circus. Yes, Sound of Noise is that good. The combination of completely mental action and intricately designed musical set pieces is truly amazing to watch and gives a niche all its own.

Unlike The Last Circus, which was relatively plot-heavy, Sound of Noise is entirely dependent upon action. There is some skeletal plot about a policeman, Amadeus, who was born tone deaf and a crew of six percussionists looking to wreak havoc and their cat and mouse game across Stockholm. However, these details only exist to give the Six Drummers a reason to stage elaborate performances in the oddest of places with only the strangest of instruments.

The directors of the film had worked together on a couple of short films before deciding to go feature length with the concept. Those two shorts are included in the set and present the pair's ambitions pretty clearly. It is evident that this is not their first rodeo. Everything from the intricate editing to the complex musicianship tells a story of a well-practiced team. Sound of Noise is genuinely unlike anything I've ever seen, and that's getting to be a harder and harder task to master, which makes it all the more impressive.

Where the film falters is really a function of the film's goal, which makes it difficult to count it as a detriment, and that is the plot. The basic story is that these Six Drummers have devised a symphony for a city titled, "Music For Six Drummers and a City". The symphony has four movements, each to be played in a different non-musical arena, and each to be played with found instruments. There is nothing criminal about that, the problem is that the movements are designed to be more and more daring, one in a surgical theatre, one in a bank, and so on. Because of their illicit nature, Amadeus is put on the case of tracking down and arresting the mad musicians before they do something truly dangerous. There is some side plot about Amadeus' personal history with music and his own tone deafness, but that is little more than window dressing and a flimsy way to stretch the bare bones plot to feature length.

The beautiful thing about Sound of Noise is that none of those minor quibbles have any effect on my ability to enjoy what is, truly, an original and daring piece of cinema. The film is little more than elaborate performance art pieces strung together with relatively flimsy connective tissue to give the film a shape, however, it is in the vignettes that Sound of Noise finds purpose, and it is within those performances that the film's heart beats loudly and charms the pants off anyone who may try to resist its primitive charms.

Sound of Noise is definitely one to check out!

The Disc:

Magnolia Pictures released Sound of Noise back in June on DVD only, which is a shame. The disc itself isn't bad, really, but a film with such an active aural and visual sense would have benefited greatly from the upgrade to HD. The image transfer is okay, but not great. I've seen so many amazing DVD transfers lately, like Mondo Macabro's Countess Perverse, that it has become harder to forgive modern films on DVD when they are less than stellar. There are some minor problems with the image, mostly softness to my eyes, but it is serviceable, especially when the audio takes up the slack so ably. As one might hope for with a film so dependent on sound, this DVD's Dolby Digital 5.1 surround track is simply AMAZING. This is another reason I would have loved to have seen this film on Blu-ray, although I can't say I have any complaints about this audio track, it is simply stunning with its use of the sound field and fidelity during the musical sequences.

Magnolia has included several nice extras with Sound of Noise that are well worth checking out. There are the two above mentioned shorts, "Music For an Apartment and Six Drummers" & "Music For One X-Mas and Six Drummers", both of which show that this team knew what they wanted going into the feature shoot. There is also a making of segment for one of the musical movements, "Doctor, Doctor", that takes place in a surgical theatre with a live patient. It is remarkable to see just how much work goes into making it come of as spontaneous. There are also a couple of other snippets of work from the team behind Sound of Noise, and if you like the film, you'll certainly be interested in these.

I cannot recommend Sound of Noise enough, not every film wins the Best Picture prize at Fantastic Fest, but if any film deserved it, it was this one!

To give you a taste, I'm including the trailer for the film which initially got me interested after I saw it on the God Bless America Blu-ray, enjoy!