Film review: Sound of Falling

Occasionally, a film comes whose language is so specific that it forces you to step outside of your comfort zone and see the world from a different point of view. For me, this year, it’s Mascha Shilinski’s Sound of Falling, a haunting century-long tale centred on a house in a small village in East Germany and the women who lived in it.

The harrowing visuals elevate an emotional dimension to each section. In one, the brooding, crude black contrasts with the innocent blonde hair; in another, the bucolic grass invites darker thoughts. But halfway through the film, as I was writing some notes so I wouldn’t forget, one stood up: I’m not nearly equipped to analyse this piece of work. So, I start this review with an apology, understanding that you may not want to continue to read. But if you’re just looking for an abridged recommendation, Sound of Falling is a dense, emotional piece of cinema I thoroughly recommend.

The frame centres on four women of different ages and from different eras of recent German history. Before World War I, there was a 7-year-old Alma (Anna Heck) who observed the small community’s deep relationship with grief and death. She learns that there was another child, also named Alma, who passed away before Alma was born. Her post-mortem picture, with a blurred figure of their mother, haunts young Alma. Later, she witnesses her uncle Fritz (Filip Schnack) being dragged to the yard to have his leg chopped off so he doesn’t have to be drafted. Death in her world is permeable.

In the 1940s, teenager Erika (Lea Drinda) experiences an awakening (perhaps sexual, perhaps deeper than that) as she sneaks into now adult Fritz’s room (Martin Rother) and pretends what it would feel like to have her leg amputated.

In the 1980s, before the fall of the Berlin Wall (this farm is in East Germany), Angelika (Lena Urzendowsky), Erika’s niece, flirts with her cousin Rainier (Florian Geißelmann) but is having a secret affair with her uncle Uwe (Konstantin Lindhorst). Angelika yearns for a liberation she can’t quite pinpoint, but that’s inherent to her. The contrast between young Alma and Erika was accentuated.

And then, finally, the 2020s, where 12-year-old Lenka (Laeni Geiseler) recently moved into the renovated house with her family. Life is perfect and bucolic, the family dynamic tight and comforting. Lenka befriends another older girl from the village, Kaya (Ninel Geiger), whose life hasn’t been as easy, but whom Lenka nevertheless idolises.

Shilinski’s contemplative eye is never dull. She invites the audience to quietly decode her characters, dropping compelling visual crumbs along the way. A recurring motif of death, playing dead, feeling warm, the river, and something as personal as sweat dripping off a belly button are little pieces of a wider thematic puzzle Shilinski constructs. It’s not for me, or anyone, to point out how everything should be put together, because nothing is patronising or absolute. Shilinski’s camera has a phantasmagorical touch, carefully choosing what to keep in focus and what to leave out. That ghost-like feature is profoundly enigmatic, yet it stands on its own as a way for Shilinski to invite the audience on an emotional and personal journey.

Sound of Falling is like listening to a folk song in a language you don’t know. You are engrossed by the melody, and the heart of it is not lost in the translation, but there will always be something you miss from not understanding the lyrics. Sound of Falling is deeply feminine; the conversation it’s having is not with me. I’m just happy and touched that I got to witness it.

For young and older women who have found or are still looking for their place. And everyone else who understands death is fickle and freeing.