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Rating: Nominated for the 2021 Oscars in as many as six categories, including Best Picture, "Sound of Metal" is, in my opinion, a unique and promising example among the potential winners of the world's most famous film award.
The story revolves around Ruben, the drummer of a noise metal duo, who tours America in a camper with the singer and girlfriend, Lou. The opening scene gives us a glimpse of the concert, amidst screamed notes, the sound of cymbals, and the audience's shouts. These are sounds that, in a few days, Ruben begins to hear increasingly faint and muffled, replaced by an annoying and terrible ringing that settles in his ears—his own, and those of the viewers, especially if they are wearing headphones, like me. Through an interplay of sound, Ruben is diagnosed with a condition that will lead him to irreversibly lose his hearing: obviously incredulous and reluctant to accept the news, Ruben inquires about the possibility of a procedure that would allow him to hear again, the cost of which, as the kind doctor gently points out, might while perhaps dissuade him from the idea. When, after the final concert, Ruben is forced to reveal the truth to Lou, she becomes worried also because of Ruben's past drug addiction, which he has relapsed into due to the event: their manager connects them with a rehab community for deaf addicts, and after initial reluctance, Ruben agrees to join the community and part ways with Lou.
Ruben thus begins his path of... healing, if it can be called that, because, in fact, the approach taken by the community, and its 'leader', Joe, is to not consider deafness as an ailment but, instead, with a very lifestyle medicine approach, to improve one’s life by accepting the present condition and, above all, avoiding relapses into alcohol and drugs. Ruben, at first, finds himself isolated, still having one foot out, straddling two worlds: albeit hearing little, he tries to communicate verbally and not through sign language, which is the method of communication used by the community. However, his integration journey develops fairly quickly (well, it's a two-hour film after all): Ruben learns to communicate with the others, participates in activities, makes friends, even with the children to whom he teaches drumming. Sound and rhythm remain a central part of the film, as evidenced by a symbolic moment that refers to the film’s title. Because of this, Ruben cannot find peace: when he sees a performance by Lou, alone in Paris, his desire to hear and play again resurfaces. He decides to face the costly operation which, through a cochlear implant (source: Wikipedia), is able to restore his auditory perception. But this surgery clashes with Joe's and the center’s philosophy that hearing restoration is not the solution to the problems, and Ruben is forced to leave.
Ruben wants to return to Lou, who has moved to France with her father (we find it hard to abandon the fascination for the French girl cliche and some oui here and there) hoping to rebuild their future together, both as a couple and as a musical group, and this is where the last part of the film focuses, with an ending which, perhaps, is rather predictable and is the logical conclusion to the journey faced by the protagonist.
"Sound of Metal" is a film with a simple, linear, and clear narrative, and in this, it is capable of presenting to the general audience, not only to cinephiles, an original, new, and compelling story that brings the deaf community to the big screen, not only in content but also in form, with a use of sound (Oscar-nominated) that aims to mimic the auditory sensations of diminishing and lost hearing, with such persistent acoustic distortions that, perhaps, can partly convey the discomfort experienced by those suffering from it. Possibly one of the first films in which sign language becomes an integral part of dialogue and therefore of the narrative, yet the decision to link the theme of drug addiction with that of disability creates a perhaps somewhat forced juxtaposition: that is, if Ruben had only been deaf, without ever having had dependency issues, would there have been a community to welcome him and teach him to live without considering himself societal waste? And furthermore, why ever make having surgery to recover hearing the equivalent of a heroin injection? I mean, I understand the approach on a theoretical level, but on a pragmatic level, I see the differences between the two solutions, and above all, I understand the desire of a musician not living in Beethoven’s times to want to hear and play.
The theme of marginalization imparts much of the film's potential, and the combination of the social problem with the physical one creates a multi-faceted aspect that is surely interesting, though maybe more for commercial than intrinsic purposes: the musician with drug addiction issues is a widely exploited cliche that always appeals, but with the hearing loss, the theme is refreshed. Or conversely, the story of the drummer losing his hearing is the original idea, but to make the character more cinematic, better to also be a former addict. In any case, Ruben (played by Riz Ahmed, also up for an Oscar) doesn't remind us of Johnny Cash from "Walk the Line", nor Kurt Cobain from the beautiful "Last Days", or a tormented and melodramatic Jackson Maine from "A Star is Born", to quote some examples of such caliber characters. For the themes addressed, "Sound of Metal" reminded me somewhat of "Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far on Foot" by Gus Van Sant, which I have previously commented on here, and, without having seen it yet, lol, a perhaps more extreme "Ex Drummer" (if anyone has seen it, give a shout).
To conclude, I really liked "Sound of Metal" also visually, although I can't quite explain why; let’s say it ‘looks like an independent film with a good production behind it.’ Distributed by Prime Video, it unfortunately demonstrates how Amazon has great acumen and confirms its catalog as one of the best among the digital platforms available in Italy.
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