Sound of Metal Analysis

Sound of Metal (2019)

Directed by: Darius Marder
Starring: Riz Ahmed, Olivia Cooke
Won the Academy Award for Best Sound Editing.

It's a beautiful film about coming to terms with loss. The structure of the film is designed using the 9 stages of grief: shock/denial - he initially is clueless and roams around trying to figure out what's happened; disorganization - he misses his routine and falls out of character; anger - he breaks a lot of stuff in his van; guilt/bargaining - he immediately starts asking his girlfriend to not leave him; physical or emotional distress - we see him crying/tearing up; depression - him not being able to feel and do normal things; loss/loneliness - he sells all his stuff and gets to an almost desperate situation to get help; withdrawal - even after getting the cochlear implant, he doesn't feel the same and he starts to lose touch with reality, especially with music; acceptance - he chucks the implant and embraces the stillness. This film made me feel the fear of losing anything. The fear of not being able to get it back no matter what. The thought of not being able to ever hear, ever listen to music, ever experience films the same way, ever listen to anyone's voices - it haunted me throughout the film. 

The sound design is, of course, the heart of the film. The sound is the story. So even before he loses his hearing, the foley of him making the smoothie, the coffee dripping - all of it is cut on action and made to seem like music to create the contrast later. Later when everything is muffled, or muted - we feel the void of all these simple sounds. Since, this is the first time we get to experience how things sound if not normally - perhaps we realize the importance of foley artists in films. A friend made an interesting observation that the reason he gets irritated in the ending is because it's the sound of a church bell and he's not religious. Another interesting aspect is that all the characters have their own reasons for everything they do, no one is written like a villain. Riz Ahmed's acting is so good - he is jittery which captures his vulnerability, the unpredictable break outs too feel justified because of what he's going through. The conversation in the ending made me tear up, simply because of the way she reacts to what he tells her.