TACK N°11 : SOUND OF NOISE

Article produced by Heolruz and translated by Maia Sefton

The sound of Noise is a piece that can be classified under many different genres. It was made by Johannes Ola Simonsson and Stjarne Nilsson and released to cinemas in 2010. This film is quite coherent with the subject matter we chose to analyse but it also offers something a little different with a mix of audacity and a few novelties. It’s kind of like a UFO, it blends very distinct themes by passing through police registers towards a more comedic approach and even going through romance and music. It’s an unclassifiable movie that is so well twined to keep us on our toes. The main character, Amadeus Warnebring comes from a family of musicians, but he himself hates music with a burning rage. He is promised a radiant future in the classical music industry as a conductor but he chooses to abstain from this since he has quite a distaste for symphonies and insteads he opts for a career as a detective. One day, a threat appears, as a group of terrorists plan an apocalypse by playing an evil partition with the town itself being the instrument. A frenzied chase begins within places that are akin to urban agglomeration such as port terminals, offices and electrical centers. In this film there is a little of the madness and joy that we find in Goodmorning England that was released in 2009 in the sense that they chose to explore interesting musical paths (though they are not similar) but also through the characters wishes. It’s a thriller between a bunch of insane musicians and a tormented inspector, but it’s also a dramatic comedy that prompts us to reflect on the world around us.

Everyone will have a different interpretation when faced with such an interesting piece such as this one, but there is a flaggarent visual and sonor criticism aimed at polluted urban settings. He invites the audience to question the noises that surround them and who interfere within their listening fields, in a world that is constantly moving, where time is reduced down to our scale and with the acceleration of society noises also intensify.

Even though the film drags on a bit and has a somewhat conventional romantic story, it should be seen as a portrait of the city, a painting projected onto the screen with good and bad sides. The whole piece is not based on the images shown, the camera certainly paints a somewhat hazy and elusive picture of the city, but this impression mostly comes from the methods used during the unfolding of the film. The frame is based on the rhythm, given by the musicians instruments, they guide the images, provoke actions and change. Where in most of today’s movies the soundtrack is meticulously placed over an image to give it the right speed, the right sound quality, but in this film it is quite the opposite. Sound and music guide the film. However it is not your average musical, the pieces don’t flow together one after another, it is a very particular partition that does not aim to please, but to immerse the world into a revolution and to suppress the sound interference generated by the constant buzzing of the city.

Sound of Noise in a zany cinematographic experiment but it was a success, it replaces dialogue with sounds which creates some very interesting scenes. In a decor that has aged quite quickly it still played a part in differentiating the serious and the old fashioned even when it was created.It’s a film that has many twists without disturbing the continuity. A particular ode to the daring and courage that it takes to oversee such a project.

As a short film I would like to introduce you to Peter Tschekassky’s Outer Space (1999) but be careful if you are prone to epilepsy, it is quite violent and the images follow one another very quickly with very white and very black contrasts. I would also like to recommend the animated short Totsukuni no Shoujo (2019) by Yutaro Kubo and Satomi Maiya which is a charming revisited little tale. It follows the friendship of a child and a monster in the heart of the forest.