The History Of Sound (15)

In 1917 New England, unassuming Conservatory of Music student Lionel Worthing meets David White tinkling the ivories in a bar. There is an instant connection between two men with a mutual interest in the rich history of folk music. They spark a passionate affair, conducted breathlessly behind closed doors, which is cut short when America enters the conflict. David is drafted but Lionel's poor eyesight exempts him from service.

LondonNet Film Review

The History Of Sound (15) Film Review from LondonNet

Writer-director Oliver Hermanus strikes an emotional chord with his elegant romance expanded from Ben Shattuck’s original short story but the notes he plays are soft and polite, even with stirring performances from Paul Mescal and Josh O’Connor as secret lovers, who stoke desire before and after the First World War inflicts deep psychological scars on a generation of idealistic, young men…

In 1917 New England, unassuming Conservatory of Music student Lionel Worthing (Mescal) meets David White (O’Connor) tinkling the ivories in a bar. There is an instant connection between two men with a mutual interest in the rich history of folk music. They spark a passionate affair, conducted breathlessly behind closed doors, which is cut short when America enters the conflict. David is drafted but Lionel’s poor eyesight exempts him from service. “Don’t die,” implores Lionel staring into his lover’s glassy eyes.

Years later, Lionel receives a letter from David and the pair embark on an odyssey through the backwoods of Maine to collect traditional songs and preserve them for posterity on wax cylinders. Lionel’s synaesthesia, which allows him to see colours when listening to music, is a steadfast travelling companion when life, once again, propels the men down different paths. Like a melody that lodges in the brain, Lionel continues to think about David and the time they spent together. Following a sun-kissed Roman holiday and an ill-fated dalliance with socialite Clarissa Roux (Emma Canning) beneath dreaming spires, Lionel doggedly seeks answers and a possible reunion.

Enriched with a voiceover from Chris Cooper as the older incarnation of Lionel, The History Of Sound has been flatteringly compared to Brokeback Mountain but Hermanus’s picture, for all its artful restraint, does not approach the raw emotional devastation of Ang Lee’s trek across the sheep-herding pastures of 1970s Wyoming. The muted colour palette and impeccable framing of Alexander Dynan’s cinematography mirror the understated excellence of the production and costume design.

Even in its quietest moments when the two-hour running time suddenly gains elasticity, there is an undeniable, beguiling beauty to a tortured world glimpsed through Hermanus’s eyes. Individually, Mescal and O’Connor have radiated white-hot emotion like supernovae in two of the finest LGBTQ romances of the past decade: All Of Us Strangers and God’s Own Country. Here, the actors harmonise appealingly and kindle aching tenderness but Shattuck’s adaptation of his own work fails to loudly convey the characters’ internal symphonies. Hushed stoicism caresses a heartstring that yearns to be plucked.

– Kim Hu