Team FYC: Neighboring Sounds for Best Foreign Language Film
Sunday, December 1, 2013 at 10:00AM In this series Team Experience sounds off (individually) on their favorite fringe awards contenders. Here's Amir Soltani on Neighboring Sounds.
Since the Academy wisely overhauled its nominating process for the foreign language film award and Dogtooth nabbed that delightfully shocking nomination, pundits tend not to take any film's chances too lightly in this category. Still, a nod for Brazil's intense and quietly powerful submission would come as a major surprise. That's partly because the film ran the festival circuit last year and its buzz has been more of a hum for a few months now so it's hard to imagine the executive committee coming to its rescue. It's a real shame because Neighboring Sounds isn't just the best of the submitted films; it is quite possibly the year's best film, period.
Sounds opens with a series of black and white still photos attuned to a rousing score that provide more social context for the story in 57 seconds than most films do in 90 minutes. Kleber Mendoca Filho - on his first try at helm - paints an increasingly unsettling portrait of an affluent neighborhood in the Brazilian city of Recife that wants to remain oblivious to the poverty and corruption that engulfs it. The greatest accomplishment of the film, and its rich but anti-climactic finale, is that it creates a sense of inescapable unease in the audience, not entirely unlike what the neighborhood residents deal with routinely.
Neighboring Sounds subverts our expectations at every turn, playing games with the laguange of cinema - both in the construction of its images and, as the title suggests, sounds - to shape our understanding of characters and the film's geopolitical space. It is the rare film that builds energy through completely inconspicuous means. It is not the guns and criminals that escalate violence; it's a meditative dip in the waterfall or a casual conversation between neighbors on a rooftop. The underlying sense of discomfort is a result of the film's "guilty until proven innocent" approach toward all its characters. By the film's end, the mistrust between the neighborhood's residents has slowly creeped in on us and become impossible to shake off. This is a masterclass in crafting a suspenseful piece, given by a man whose assured control of his film betrays no sign of his inexperience. Here's hoping Academy voters take notice.
Reader Comments (8)
I'm really glad this movie is resonating with people... I was afraid it might be too specific to our culture here in brazil, but then it's just the details because the basic understanding is universal (it reminded of "caché", also a movie where I don't think you have to know the particular history between france and algeria to appreciate what it's being portrayed).
just some context to a funny passage on the film that international viewers will not get:
SPOILERS I GUESS
in the scene during the tenants meeting where they're discussing the situation with the janitor, this woman complains about getting her magazine without the plastic wrap... the magazine she subscribes to and mentions by name is VEJA, the most popular weekly magazine here in brazil and also very conservative. so everyone that I saw the film with laughed when she irritatedly protested: "I received my VEJA out of the plastic wrap!!".
oh, and kleber mendonça filho is a former critic and also has directed a few acclaimed short movies. "som ao redor" is actually only his first fictional feature.
marcelo- I sought out his previous work after I watched this. I've seen Recife Frio and Vinil Verde. Been looking for the chance to watch his doc Critico too. I really like everything I've seen so far. His 2014 film is at the top of my most anticipated list.
Re: resonating with a foreign audience, it actually reminded me a lot of gated communities in certain parts of Iran where the story of Sounds cool happen bit by bit. I don't know if that has anything to do with why I appreciate the film so much, but actually think not. It's more universal than that. And that's also why I like the ending quite a lot, unlike some people I've spoken to about this. It doesn't go out with bang but it keeps the audience in that environment, as if to reiterate that the sort of social dynamic it portrays is inescapable.
really glad too. that movie made me so proud. it's says so much about what we are living right now in our country, which i'm sure translates to other "emerging countries", where we can see the development of a huge middle class population who's finally able to afford stuff like cars, tvs, travels (or in other words: these people are finally able to live up to the fantasies advertisement agencies have been selling and be a consumer in global capitalism), but whose access to education is just now catching up to it. we got illiterate house maids who will probably never learn how to read, but they got their car, their tv, they can buy plane tickets, they might even hire their own maids, etc. And the best news is that their kids are in school learning English and Chinese and hopefully will be the first generation of these families to go to college.
Things are really transforming around here, and "Neighboring Sounds" is the first movie to speak about that. It's also technically really strong. The director does an excellent job, being also in charge of the sound design in the movie, a technical aspect which i believe is majorly responsible for that "underlying sense of discomfort" and tension Amir talks about.
@marcelo: that tenants' meeting is so funny. and the pun about "veja" was the best!
Great movie, very effective and eerie. I quite like how you could see it as horror movie about the ghosts of our past/present society.
But it is, in fact, an horror movie. The abandoned school in the old farm is named "João Carpinteiro". In good English, John Carpenter.
Have been keen to watch this one again since I saw it at the tail end of a film festival that was 40 films deep. I don't even remember the scene where the image is from!
Nice piece.
Really sad I missed this film!
What is very powerful isn't the film itself, but Mendonça's political power to have his film well criticized by his friends. The efficiency of new world marketing is getting your work into other's mouths, not by its quality, but from the social capability of his creator instead. He knows how to do that very well, much better than filmmaking.