It is hard to explain how silence feels. Not as in the absence of sound, but in your heart and mind. Silence can be heavy, can be sharp, can be ephemeral or can last months. Sound Of Metal (2019) is a film that focuses on these silences through its central character Ruben. Upon first look, this is evident, Ruben, a drummer in a metal duo, loses his hearing and is confronted with a tough process of adapting. But filmmaker Darius Marder constructs a complex tumbling tower of emotions from this starting point. Sound of Metal is not just concerned with the literal, but the phenomenological absence of sound and music.
When I talk about music as I will from this point on, I do not mean it as songs, but the musicality of life. The tacit values that bring rhythm, colour and harmony to our lives. These are present in the little things, the small surprises that break the quotidian, but also in grander aspects, our relationships, our triumphs and challenges. This musicality is explored in Sound of Metal in many ways. Marder constructs tableaux-vivants of slice-of-life that are charged with the aforementioned musicality of life. A slow dance early in the morning between Ruben and his partner Lou before he loses his hearing or Ruben unloading his frustration punching a donut to bits after he loses his hearing, are but a couple of examples of how Marder explores the tune that dictate our emotional states, like organic invisible orchestra directors, and how their absence affects our lives.
I could choose from one of the aforementioned moments or a handful of other scenes to focus on. However, I want to focus on two crucial moments that resonate deeply with this notion of inner musicality and that in turn, greatly relate to my emotional journey.
Firstly, and a little bit more on the nose, we have Ruben’s reaction to his hearing aid surgery. For the sake of the medical intervention, Ruben is forced to sell everything he owns, including his RV, his only means of transportation and housing, and his musical instruments, his preferred tools of expression. In an attempt to belong (or to reset what he knows as normal), Ruben sacrifices everything that keeps him grounded. This is why his realization that hearing aids are not really reverting his hearing to what he once knew carries so much power. In this moment: a musical rest…silence. No harmony, no colour, no rhythm. Ruben’s emotions come to a halt.
It is difficult to deal with the frustration of failing after sacrifice. Especially when it comes after trying to change something we too late realize is not in our power to change. However, the prominent emotion is not anger or sadness, just like Marder shows through Ruben, this feeling seeps in and out of our body like a tired resignation, like a muted chordless piano. A beat. A sigh in a dormant audience. Just like it happens in Sound of Metal, this moment of silence can evolve into a moment of reflection, a pivotal point to grow to get stuck, which leads us to the second scene.
After his surgery, Ruben decides to visit Lou at her dad’s house. The reunion does not pan out as expected. Lou has to host a hectic social event where Ruben is visibly being left behind. The scene plays entirely through Ruben’s point of view; we see what he sees: closed circles of people that are not trying (or simply cannot) welcome Ruben. We also hear what he hears: an unbearable cacophony of shrilling voices and static. Marder uses this sequence to juxtapose the silence of the sequence we mentioned before. What was a rest is now forte.
This is not a moment to reflect but to confront. A crescendo of emotions. Ruben has to face the fact that he no longer belongs in the life of someone he deeply loves. Simultaneously, he has to accept the fact that the implants were not what he expected and that he will probably have to fend off without them. There is a huge clash of passions that visually and audibly are conveyed throughout the night.
Marder, aptly, follows this scene with silence. Ruben leaves Lou’s house in the morning and sits on a bench alone. He takes out the implants and lets the silence take over. Acceptance. Harmony has to be built again, new chords need to be written. One of life’s rare gifts, the ever-painful ability to begin again. This is the musical magic Sound of Metal delivers, a story written like a musical score of emotions on the moments that build up to the realization that the lowest of the lows is just a chance to go high again…and life is just a composition in a loop.
Short Ends 