Sound of Metal (Darius Marder, 2018)

Musician Ruben (Riz Ahmed) finds his life upended when he learns he is losing his hearing.

Already struggling with addiction, he is anxious to find a way out of his current dilemma... 

I have been meaning to watch this movie for years.

I tend to avoid movies based around disability.

As a disabled person, I get frustrated with the limitations of how disabilities are portrayed, particularly in mainstream media.

They are not treated as characters but symbols, figures of tragedy, or catalysts for the main character’s redemption.

As someone who likes to write about film, it is one of the few subjects I find it hard to get worked up to write about.

Sound of Metal felt different.

A movie about transition, Sound of Metal is about a non-disabled person gains an impairment.

 

It never spoon-feeds the character’s journey.

It lets the story play out, using sound design to bring us onto the characters’ experience.

The absence or distortion of sound also strips the film of emotional signposting through a musical score.

Riz Ahmed’s face is the focal point. Often silent, he communicates the character’s struggles without overt mannerisms or even in a way that does not appear to convey sympathy.

 

The character spends the movie wanting to avoid his impairment. 

In a more generic version, the moment our protagonist joined the Deaf community would be a point of transition. One could see a version where he comes to terms with the change to his life and rides off into the sunset. The end.

What I loved about Sound of Metal was how it completely frustrates that dramatic trajectory. 

Instead, Ruben spends this interlude battling his demons and dreaming of a Cochlear implant.

The film recognises that change is hard.

Being detached from his old life does not mean Ruben’s other problems go away. Nor does it mean he is ready to change his goals or the way he thinks about the world.

And while the movie does not present his obsession with the implant as a cure, neither does it condemn him for yearning for his old life back.

Midway through the film, mentor Joe (Paul Raci) tells Ruben that he cannot help him - he wants him to figure things out on his own.

Sound of Metal ends with the character achieving his goal of an implant - but it is not the Nat’s t fix he was hoping for.

Instead of despair, he turns it off. Finally he understands the depth of how his world has shifted. 

But rather than end in despair or hopelessness, the film offers… 

Silence. 

Ahmed’s face, previously so taut with tension, is relaxed.

The character walks down a street into a busy but silent world. 

On this ambiguous but vaguely hopeful note, the film ends. 

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