Writer Ben Shatuck (adapting from his own short story of the same name) teams with director Oliver Hermanus to bring audiences THE HISTORY OF SOUND which teams the ubiquitous pair of latter day stars, Paul Mescal and Josh O’Connor.
Hermanus’ last film was Living with Bill Nighy, a film that had a similarity and resonance with Merchant Ivory oeuvre and so does this, although similarities to Ang Lee’s Brokeback Mountain persist in popular commentary.
Memory is history and sound in this film is tied so inextricably to memory, of a moment once shared, of a song once heard.
Music students Lionel and David meet in a pub and bond over a sing a long of folk songs. Lionel is impressed by David’s tickling of the ivories and forms a crush based on pianist envy. David is similarly captivated by Lionel’s vibrato.
Their affair is circumvented by World War I with David drafted and Lionel returning to his Kentucky farm. At the cessation of hostilities, David contacts Lionel with an offer of employment as his assistant in a university funded field trip across the state of Maine to record folk music on wax cylinders.
And so their interrupted melody is resumed as they wax lyrical across rural America, until circumstances force another separation, with Lionel travelling to Europe to participate in an elite choir.
From there, THE HISTORY OF SOUND becomes a melancholy serenade, with counterpoint and fugue and a surprising and beautiful coda.
THE HISTORY OF SOUND is a slow burn, subtle study of a relationship founded on a love of folk and foundered on world stage circumstances.
Paul Mescal muscles most of the movie as Lionel, while Josh O’Connor’s David supplies a haunting refrain. Chris Cooper brings gravitas and poignancy as Lionel in later life.
The boondocks of Maine are beautifully captured by Paul Schrader’s cinematographer of choice, Alexander Dynan, and the production has an authentic finish with costumes by Miyako Bellizzi and production design by Deborah Jensen.
THE HISTORY OF SOUND is in cinemas from December 18.
