SIFF 2011 Day 09: Listen Up

One of the highlights of this festival for me was seeing Sound of Noise, a Swedish film about music appreciation, if you will. Written around a group of renegade musicians, it is a presentation of a work for “one city and six drummers” in four movements. The musicians’ comic foil is a tone-deaf policeman from a family of accomplished musicians. There was very little in the way of plot, but who cares when you can watch the masterpiece unfold in Malmö? Instruments were front-end loaders, jack hammers, electrical cables, respirators, and even a human body. For someone like me who responds to percussion, it is a sonic delight. Hopefully Sound of Noise will see at least a limited run in theatres outside the festival circuit. If not, look out for it on Netflix.