‘Sound Of Metal’ Trailer: Riz Ahmed Gives One Of The Year’s Best Performances
By Chris Evangelista/Sept. 24, 2020 1:30 pm EST
Sound of Metal Trailer
This is a great trailer. It’s a great showcase for Ahmed’s performance and it also takes you through the emotional journey present throughout the narrative. In Sound of Metal, “During a series of adrenaline-fueled one-night gigs, itinerant punk-metal drummer Ruben (Riz Ahmed) begins to experience intermittent hearing loss. When a specialist tells him his condition will rapidly worsen, he thinks his music career — and with it his life — is over. His bandmate and girlfriend Lou (Olivia Cooke) checks the recovering heroin addict into a secluded sober house for the deaf in hopes it will prevent a relapse and help him learn to adapt to his new situation. But after being welcomed into a community that accepts him just as he is, Ruben has to choose between his equilibrium and the drive to reclaim the life he once knew.”
I caught Sound of Metal at last year’s Toronto International Film Festival, and was very impressed with it. It’s perhaps a little overlong, but Ahmed’s performance is dynamite, and nd the way director Darius Marder conveys the character’s journey is impressive. As I wrote in my review:
To adequately portray Ruben’s deafness, Marder and a fully stacked sound department burrow deep into an aural landscape – and lack thereof. Long stretches of the film have us literally in Ruben’s headspace, the sounds of the film around him muted, muffled, and altogether blocked-out. Sound of Metal is also close-captioned – not just subtitled – in an attempt to create a film designed for both hearing and deaf audiences. The experience can often be overwhelming – the very first scene of the film features Ruben practically obliterating a drumset during a concert, only to soon give way to scenes scored by ringing and then flat-out silence. With this approach, Sound of Metal has the genuine effect of drawing us into Ruben’s world.
