Sound of Noise

Sound of Noise (2010)

An absurdist, zany, intense, unpredictable film. Rather amazing, really, if you can let go of an ordinary sense of plot and progression.

At the center is a group of drummers who agree to perform a series of pieces by a cutting edge composer all around the city. But their instruments become found objects, heavy machinery, office items, hospital equipment (and hospital patient), so that their performances are intrusive, dangerous, illegal, and wonderfully outrageous.

And funny. Sometimes you laugh aloud, sometimes you just are amused and amazed.

In opposition to this group is a detective who grew up in a family of musicians but who is tone deaf. And he as a special ability to track the musical perps in their crimes--which you'll see.

Kudos should also go to the filmmakers themselves, who make this craziness very fluid and beautiful. Contemporary Stockholm is shown as complex and beautiful and modern and not a Swedish Ikea stereotype.

Finally there is a kind of interpersonal plot that is sort of fun and thin and helps hold the various performance pieces together. Maybe anything more intense on this score would have watered down the absurdist heights of the best of it, but this subplot does have a feel-good pops quality that the rest of the movie avoids. And it's the rest of the movie--mainly the "music" as it happens before your eyes--that is what counts. Great stuff!