Our take
Previous depictions of provincial living tend to paint the pastoral experience as idyllic, simple, and much more innocent compared to their city counterparts. Sound of Falling does the opposite. While it still beautifully captures the German countryside, this drama also acknowledges its terrible secrets– the ways the family maintains itself, and sidebrushes death, at the expense of the women in the family. Cutting across time and circumstance, the haunting narrative sees the rhyme in each story. Unbeknownst to each four women, their pain echoes in similar ways, even if their particular histories differentiate their extent. Sound of Falling captures how the past never fully fades, only passing down like a curse recalled in folklore.
What it won
Cannes
1 win
European Film Awards
1 win · 7 noms
The story
Four adolescent girls each spend their youth in the same farmhouse over the last century. Though separated by decades, resonances between their lives emerge: their desires and distress, secrets and truths, encounters with another’s gaze and defiant gaze in return.
Elsewhere
"It’s been a while since I’ve seen a filmmaker wield the tools of her craft with such an ingenious and committed sense of mischief. Sound of Falling... is both disorienting and enveloping; it knocks you off your feet and then sweeps you up again."
— Justin Chang
"It is a complex puzzle box, powered by the sensory and sensual, and a strong statement of intent from a bright spark in the German filmmaking scene."
— Hannah Strong
The details
Streaming arrival
Who picked it
Isabella Endrinal is a curator at A Good Movie to Watch. She's now free from the corporate night shift. Previous articles have been published in outlets such as NANG Magazine. She's currently catching up on some classic films… if she isn't coping with the fact that the Haikyu anime will end soon.
