Sound of Metal

Along with the queue of all the Oscar-nominated films this year, the Sound of Metal was the first one I got to see. Having no heightened expectations at all, perhaps just a little exposure from Lou’s eyebrows on some Twitter posts, I got to watch the film with such an unfamiliar ease. I like to believe that since I haven’t seen the actors starred in any films I watched before, it helped me to see the Sound of Metal as what it was, with no influence of any existing attachment from their past roles, just from the film itself.

With the scene opening with Ruben, the noise seems all over the place when you have your earphones plugged onto your ears. Ruben was gripping his drumsticks and pounding its weight against the drum, his eyes were afloat but protruding with fixation. After seemingly staring at nowhere, his eyes from time to time keep coming back to Lou’s back whose vocals are madly screeching in the air. For an opening, this rather gave off a strong impression driven with all the aggressive distort of sound, emphatic rhythms, not knowing that by end of the film it would ironically end up in a different sound.

After finding out that most of his hearing lost, Ruben decided still to continue exposing himself to the harsh-sounding world of heavy metal music with the remaining of it at the stake. Perhaps, more than being afraid of losing what's still left to hear, it was the fear that he might not never play what's still there to be heard from him. Lou, his girlfriend, not knowing exactly what to do, has then decided to leave Ruben to persuade him to go back to the shelter they were once gone before since she was being worried about his wellbeing. Ruben had no choice but to dismiss his will of just going to the operation and instead submitting his uncertainty and trust to whatever the shelter can offer him. 

Just like anyone else, Ruben can hardly cope up with everything since he can hear nothing. He was lost, almost always looking like giving up and running away from the harshness of the world. But still, he stayed. Every early in the morning he went to a vacant small room where on the table there's a notebook and a pen and his breakfast. He does not know what exactly he should do there, it was deafening, driving him crazy because he could not understand what's the logic behind that morning routine that he was asked to do.

Having used with the harsh sound of the world, Ruben found himself out of place in the dining area with people who can't speak but who were using sign languages to talk. He was alone. He was lonely. He badly wanted to bring back his hearing. So when he got the chance to undergo an operation, he felt that growing hope. He was supposed to be happy, that was probably what he was imagined to feel once the operation will be successful, and he never thought it would fail because why it would when he already sell their RV for an exchange of enough money? But Ruben, despite having his implants activated, was more than hopeless than happy because of its distorted sound. He flew to Paris where he met Lou's father first and had a rather uncomfortable but needed conversation. In the party, Lou and his father performed a duet and everyone seemed pleased but Ruben in the midst of the crowd felt that once familiar solitude. It was not the same solitude he felt in the shelter where it grew to him comfortable... after spending the night beside Lou, Ruben left while she was sleeping. He walked and listened to the distorted sound of the morning rush, and when he looked up to the ringing of a church bell he removed his implants and sat in silence. 

This film was not exhausting to watch. It did not ask me to render an extra energy just so I can spot every possible metaphor if there is. It was pretty straightforward and something you can consume in one seating. Maybe if there is one thing I like to talk about, it is how loud the film opened, and how the level of noise slowly decreased as the story progressed, and ended with Ruben completely submitting to silence.