You can admire the ambition, style and scope of a film as well as the themes it is addressing, without actually loving it, right? Suffice to say, I am not in the critical majority when it comes to Mascha Schilinski’s Cannes award-winner (Jury Prize), Sound Of Falling (In Die Sonne Schauen). I don’t mind alienating, confounding cinema if it is building to something rich and rewarding, but with one extraordinary exception, I found that the patchwork threads just did not stitch up to a whole, satisfying filmic tapestry.
There is a power to Schilinski’s storytelling, and she has a singular style for certain. The film spotlights four generations of one family on a farm in the Altmark in Germany and examines misogyny, damaging patriarchy, trauma, grief, incest and suicide—to name just a few themes.
The film’s focus is on the women, beginning with a little girl, Alma, in the early part of the 20thcentury. The other time periods covered are WW2-era 1940s, the 1980s and present day.
We are given bits and pieces of scenes, then she slowly gives us more as the nonlinear narrative takes shape. And I did love this about the film. But the only piece that came together in the most incredibly moving way involved a young man whose leg had been amputated and the ultimate reasons for that, and how it happened.
Sound of Falling is beautifully photographed by cinematographer Fabian Gamper—shooting in 1:1.37 format so we are peeping toms looking in.
The sound of a LP-playing type clicking that then becomes fizzing noise is initially quite effective but then overused.
This is the filmmaker’s second feature and Germany’s International Feature Oscar Submission.
Perhaps the 2 ½ hour film requires another viewing or two to fully appreciate it. And I am all for that. As it stands the viewing experience was simultaneously fascinating and frustrating. I wanted to know more about the backstories behind so much of the trauma as well as more of a dive into the psychology of the characters—instead of the constant bombardment of fragmented scenes and sound interruptions.
