Simply Perfect

One of my all time favorites.

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

When The Sound of Noise ended, I wasn't entirely sure what to think about it. Here is a film so bizarre, with a plot so daffy that it becomes one of those films that you either embrace or reject. It took me quite some time to figure out where I stand with it, and as of now I'm on the embracing side with a few minor reservations.This is a caper film, but not of the Michael Mann variety. This is something that might make have added Bansky to its thank you's during the closing credits. It involves an unfortunate soul named Amadeus Warnebring, who was born into a family of musical legends. Unfortunately, he was born tone deaf. With that, he grew up and became a detective.Amadeus seems to be very good at this job, but seems trumped in his current task of tracking down the identities of a terrorist group who have been committing random acts of public disruption. They don't blow things up or hurt anyone, no, they play music at inappropriate places. As the movie opens, the ringleader is being chased through town in a van by the cops while her boyfriend sits in the back and plays the drums in time to a metronome. They act as a sort of Bonnie and Clyde of auditory disruption. What they are doing doesn't seem to make any sense, but what they accomplish is some kind of weird genius.The crooks get away, and Amadeus is on their trail. We meet the couple, Sanna and Magnus as they work to pull together a masterpiece of musical distraction. They hire four expert drummers, all with differing styles, and determine what objects make the perfect percussive sounds. Their plan is to break into four major institutions, a hospital, a bank, an opera house and high-tension towers and play their music on objects that might be considered non-musical. Each crime will represent a different movement in their composition.The music isn't especially good, but the audacity with which they commit their dastardly deeds is kind of fun. Attempting to find a purpose behind this might be as futile as trying to understand why clouds look like everyday objects. In the pattern of poetry, it might be said "because it's there." The film has an inevitable sense of humor from which it never recedes. A film this bizarre wouldn't work if it allowed any measure of seriousness to seep in. The scene set in a hospital is the most curious, a the terrorist use the belly of a fat man as one of their instruments and the sound of the oxygen tanks for the tones. The scene at the high-tension towers is the most memorable, with the city's power grid blinking on and off like a bizarre Christmas light display. It is a sight to behold.If there is a weakness, I'm afraid that it is that this film runs on a bit longer than it should. It is based on a 2001 short film called "Music for One Apartment and Six Drummers" which ran this premise just about as far as it possibly could. This film, at an hour and forty-two minutes, runs its course probably about a half hour longer than it should. Yet, while I complain about the length, I won't complain about the content. I will only say that while it is a good film, not a great one, it succeeded in giving me an experience that I can't say I've ever had before. That's a good thing.

I have not seen every movie ever made, but I'm fairly confident in my belief that there has never been one in which six anarchist musicians break into a hospital dressed as nurses, wheel a patient into an operating room, sedate him, and then perform a makeshift concert using everything in the room, including the patient's stomach, as a percussion instrument. "Sound of Noise" is one of the most refreshingly original oddities to come along in quite some time – a crime caper, a deadpan comedy, and a fantasy all rolled into one. The soundtrack is rhythmic and infectious yet curiously indescribable, as it rarely features traditional acoustic or electronic instruments. For unconventionality alone, composers Fred Avril and Magnus Börjeson (also one of the actors) may be deserving of an Oscar nomination for Best Original Score.The film, adapted by directors Ola Simonsson and Johannes Stjärne Nilsson from their 2001 short film "Music for One Apartment and Six Drummers," tells two separate yet related stories, both of which will cleverly converge in the final act. In the first story, we meet policeman Amadeus Warnebring (Bengt Nilsson), whose very name is the epitome of cruel irony; born into a family of musical prodigies, he grew up tone-deaf and ultimately developed a physical and psychological aversion to music altogether. He desires nothing more than a world of silence. This isn't to say he wants to become deaf. He just wants the music to stop. He's an embarrassment to his family, especially his brother, Oscar (Sven Ahlström), a respected conductor.In the second story, we meet Sanna Persson (which, conveniently, is also the name of the actress playing her) and her sidekick, Magnus (Börjeson), both of whom were expelled from a prestigious music academy some years earlier for their unorthodox musical philosophies. They both believe that the world is drowning in a sea of bad music. They resolve to compose their own brand of music, the likes of which the city won't soon forget. They recruit four drummers from various musical circles to assist them. Collectively dubbed the Six Drummers, they devise a "concert" consisting of four movements – which is to say, they will trespass into four different city locations and make an orchestra out of the available objects (think an antiestablishment retrofit of Stomp, and you've got it). The first movement is at the hospital, mentioned above. The second is at a bank, in which they use shredding machines, stamps, and coins in harmony. The tellers and customers are never held at gunpoint, but they are forced into being an audience.The Six Drummers leave a path of vandalism. Warnebring follows it, despite not being taken seriously by his fellow officers or superiors. As he goes from one location to another, led by clues hidden within the names of the movements, he becomes aware of a bizarre aural deficit: He can no longer register sound from any object or person touched by the Six Drummers. Take the hospital patient whose stomach became a drum; when Warnebring tries to question him, all he can see is an angry man moving his lips. He bangs on a bedpan yet hears no metallic clang. He passes a barking dog, and yet no bark emanates from its mouth. As this is happening, he accepts an invitation to attend a concert conducted by his brother. It takes less than twenty bars of music before he must excuse himself, for the sound of the orchestra is like sandpaper to his ears.I think the filmmakers were wise to not let little things like plausibility get in the way of the screenplay. I would not say the film is an emotional experience, although it certainly doesn't work on the mind. Like a child playing a game of make believe, the story freely bypasses the roadblocks of common sense and rationality and simply is. We're not supposed to question how the Six Drummers got hold of scrubs or bulldozers or diggers or jackhammers (wait until you see how those last three are utilized). We're not meant to analyze the physical or mental reasons for Warnebring's selective deafness. These plot lines are intended to be fun and freewheeling. You might even say the filmmakers move to the beat of a different drum.I have doubts about the ultimate fate of the Six Drummers, for it seems highly unlikely that true anarchists would suddenly and inexplicably be so compromising in their ways. As for Warnebring, I found his final scene charming yet bittersweet. What he considers a victory, I consider a tragic loss. But who am I question what makes someone happy? More to the point, why should I be critical when it was the only appropriate direction for the story to go in? For anyone who believes the movies have ceased to be unique, "Sound of Noise" will be like a shot in the arm. It's a revitalizing experience, not just as a story but also as a celebration of sound and music. Here is a film in which audiophiles should be just as entertained, if not more so, as avid movie watchers.-- Chris Pandolfi (www.atatheaternearyou.net)

Viewed at the Festival du Film, Cannes 2010Now that you've read the plot summary... Okay, a group of drummers terrorise a city with their daring musical 'raids' while a tone deaf, music hating, detective tries to track them down... The Sound of Noise is the kind of dark comedic madness only the Scandinavians do so well: percussionists as musical terrorists laying down the beat for an entire city.This is a conceit built around the musicians themselves, taking several of their set-piece numbers and weaving them into a narrative structure. In this sense, seen as a film with the classic three act structure, story and character development etc., Sound of Noise is less successful. But as a showcase for amazing musical ability and sheer imagination, this film cannot be beaten.

"Music for an apartment and six drummers" has reached so called cult status on Youtube. Here is a full length version of the same idea. You can use a hospital patient as percussion, you an surely also use bank note destroyers for the same purpose, not to talk about caterpillars.True drum anarchy and if you're into this kind of humour, you will find this incredibly funny. The plot is thin, on purpose, and includes a tone deaf police inspector. He's coming after the percussion terrorists.This Swedish movie really has its chances to be some kind of cult hit abroad. But you must like rhythm.