This week, we focus on two films, Sound of Metal and Blind, with different approaches in depicting disability. We discuss the formula of the disability melodrama, able bodied actors playing characters with disability, and the difference between best sound and most sound.
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This episode features Editor-in-Chief Alex Heeney, Executive Editor Orla Smith, Associate Editor Brett Pardy, and staff writer Angelo Muredda.
Sound of Metal (Darius Marder, 2019)
Darius Marder’s debut film follows drummer and recovering addict Ruben (Riz Ahmed) as he begins to lose his hearing. While he is set on getting cochlear implants, his partner Lou (Olivia Cooke) encourages him to go to a centre for deaf recovering addicts. Ruben attempts to adapt to his hearing loss and the centre’s strict rules.
Sound of Metal is streaming on Prime in the USA and Australia and available on VOD in Canada
Blind (Eskil Vogt, 2014)
Eskil Vogt, site favourite Joachim Trier‘s frequent co-writer, made his directorial debut with Blind. Author Ingrid (Ellen Dorrit Petersen), has recently lost her eyesight. Depressed and confining herself to her apartment, she imagines a fantasy world to play out her fears involving her husband Morten (Henrik Rafaelson), and fictional characters Elin (Vera Vitali) and Einar (Marius Kolbenstvedt)
Blind is streaming on Ovid in Canada and the US, Kanopy in the US and Australia, and is available on VOD
Show notes
- Riz Ahmed in Sound of Metal was one of our 20 best lead performances of 2020. See the others.
- “It’s the kind of sound work that wins awards for Best Sound Design, when it’s really just Most Sound Design” Read more of Alex’s review of Sound of Metal in her discussion of the 2019 TIFF Platform lineup
- Sound of Metal received two votes in our critics survey of the best films of 2020
- Read Alex’s interview with Eskil Vogt, on Blind and Thelma
- Read Angelo’s review of Sound of Metal at Film Freak Central
- You can read Angelo Muredda’s essay on Portrait of a Lady on Fire in our Céline Sciamma ebook Portraits of resistance, and his essay on Wendy & Lucy in our Kelly Reichardt ebook Roads to nowhere.
