T H E N A I V E F I L M M A K E R

Darius Marder has created a fascinating piece of work in Sound of Metal. A film overwhelmingly hoped by my friends would win best picture (Despite their huge love for Nomadland).

He successfully grappled with an incredibly sensitive subject with such a level of maturity, empathy and understanding that one might think he was telling his own story rather than writing a fictional piece. He successfully directed Riz Ahmed in what I believe to be his best role yet and told a story that everyone should see. It is a film that doesn’t discriminate and with its use of ASL and subtitles can be enjoyed by the hearing community and the deaf community alike.

But here’s the thing. Its not the film for you unless you’re in a good headspace. Because it is heavy and it can completely break you down. This is of course a testament to the film as it allows you to experience Riz Ahmed’s troubles along with him. But its not just pure hardship before turfing you out of the theatre to go be sad somewhere else. The film builds you back up, allowing you to leave a film with such a difficult plotline in somewhat high spirits. For me spirits were even higher because of the incredibly interesting Q&A that followed the screening.

Spoilers ahead!

To say Ruben Stone is a man who had a rug swept from under him is probably an understatement. Likewise to say he was a man thrown in at the deep end is also an understatement.

A man in his thirties and former heroin addict, he has built something of a life for himself, one that in many ways might seem enviable, he lives with his girlfriend in a campervan and they live a happy life together performing in a metal band by night and travelling and enjoying eachother’s company by day.

But all this is stolen from him with the sudden loss of his hearing. Many filmmakers would fail to get across the fear and heartbreak that Stone would be facing, but the audience experiences this with him. The heroes of this film are the sound designers who recreate with microphones the sound of deafness (notably by putting them inside Riz’s body so to recreate his own internal noise).

Whenever the story is told from Stone’s perspective, the audience hears what he hears and feels what he feels. His desperation to continue on as normal and his frustrated rage at his realisation that won’t be possible as he trashes the RV he calls home. We also feel his isolation as he first arrives at the shelter unable to communicate with anyone and torn apart from the woman and the life that he loves.

Sound of Metal by this point left me feeling completely desolated by what Stone was going through, unable to comprehend how I would be able to deal with the same situation. But this is where the turning point comes.

As predicted by Joe (played exceptionally by Paul Raci) Stone starts to fit in, he learns sign language, he makes friends and finds a second lease on life, even being told that he can work and live full time with the community. The audience is now aware that he can still have a very good life, despite having lost his hearing. It’s this turn around in his character that is also the turn around for the audience. He has discovered that life without hearing is not the disability he thought it would be and the audience begins to think everything will be okay.

Unfortunately as told by Joe, Stone is a man in the throws of addiction, its no longer drugs but the return to his old life and his choice to receive implants are in a way his turning his back on the new life he has built in pursuit of a life that no longer exists. Worse are that the implants don’t work how he expected them too, they dogged by interference and don’t provide sound as he remembered, Olivia Cooke has moved on from their old life and he cannot even enjoy her melancholic song.

Nonetheless, despite the hardships continually experienced by Stone, the film ends on an optimistic note of his removal of the implants and finally finding a moment of inner peace and stillness, something that Joe has been imploring him to find throughout their time together and something that we could all do with finding ourselves.