Noise (2007/I)

Director:

Matthew Saville

Writer:

Matthew Saville (writer)

Release Date:

3 May 2007 (Australia)

Genre:

Drama | Thriller

Plot:

The community reels after an incident on a suburban train. A young cop, beset with doubt and afflicted with tinnitus...

Plot Keywords:

Noise | Tinnitus | Train | Innocent Bystander | Medical Test

Awards:

12 wins & 17 nominations

Cast

Maia Thomas	...	Lavinia Smart
Carole Browne	...	Dead Lady
Kent Clifton-Bligh	...	Dead Transit Cop
Aaron Murphy	...	Dead Teenage Boy
Jess Huon	...	Dead Twentysomething #1
Grant Scicluna	...	Dead Twentysomething #2
Aaron Mcloughlin	...	Paraplegic
Brendan Cowell	...	Constable Graham McGahan
Greg Williams	...	Constable
Richard Pyros	...	Carter
Georgia Bolton	...	Policewoman
Kylie Trounson	...	Intern
Fiona MacLeod	...	Detective Melanie Ryan
Nicholas Bell	...	Snr. Det. Noel Birchall
Katie Wall	...	Constable Caitlin Robinson

Runtime:

108 min | Germany:105 min (European Film Market)

Country:

Australia

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Certification:

Australia:MA

Filming Locations:

Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

Company:

Retro Active Films

A very well crafted and subtle film

I loved this film. It's a subtle, layered and measured work with good performances and a wonderful use of music and sound design. The story is well paced and again I see it in musical terms with the crescendos and diminuendos carefully crafted and motifs re-occurring throughout. I also found it a visual pleasure - well lit and photographed.

For a lot of the time, the soundscape echoes the tinnitus of the lead character. Constable McGann is a man isolated in several senses and the film hovers for the most part, like he does, on the periphery of a horrendous and senseless crime. This isn't really a police procedural, but an exploration of the lives affected by the event - the locals sitting just outside the event horizon and in danger of getting sucked into the vortex.

There's knowledge hidden from us, the audience, and also events and motivations that are hidden from the protagonists - even those directly affected by them and involving them. To that extent, this movie reminds me a lot of Memento.Meaning unfolds and understanding grows as the film progresses, but at the end, you are deliberately left with pieces missing from the jigsaw puzzle. It seems to me that you are meant to be left with a sense of the fragility of society; a sense that there will always be gaps in the way we understand our relationships to others and in the way our lives play out.

I love the way that the movie ends with austere credits rolling over a couple of minutes of silence, before sound in the form of an orchestra creeps back into our perception, instrument by instrument. We share the hero's aural affliction throughout the movie and the silence and re-introduction of sound offers a sense of change and resolution - and maybe hope.