MUBI’s newest film to land in the UK, Sound of Falling, has received rave reviews since it first premiered at Cannes Film Festival last spring and won the heralded Jury Prize – and after months of waiting, it’s finally in cinemas across the country.
The second feature-length project from German director Mascha Schilinski follows four generations of women living on a rural farm, and their distinct yet overlapping experiences of childhood, adolescence and young adulthood.
Having hit the cinemas on Friday, we think it’s the perfect film to watch this International Women’s Day, not only honouring the brilliance of a female director and supporting an empathetic, female-led story, but also because Sound of Falling forces us to reflect on how much progress we’ve really made as a society over the last 100 years.
If you’re intrigued, read on to find out more about the movie, and how to watch it now…
What is Sound of Falling about?
With a non-linear structure, the film tells four stories at once, all revolving around a group of people who live on one farmstead in the rural Altmark region. Alma, seven, watches with intent as the First World War increasingly hangs over her family in the 1910s; thirty years later, Erika and her sister, Irm, become fascinated with their uncle, who lost a limb in the conflict.
© Studio ZentralIn the 1980s, teenage Angelika tests her family’s boundaries and her own safety as she reacts to the way the women around her are treated, while in the 2020s, two sisters, who recently arrived on the farm, bond with a village girl who has a troubled family life.
Speaking about the universal themes of the film, director Mascha said: “This very subjective view through the eyes of the individual women and girls, who simply observe what is happening around them and we are thus thrown directly into their experience of their everyday life, that could have taken place anywhere in the world.
“The attempt to track down the gaps in people’s felt experience for which there are no words, where language is not yet present,” she continued. “I believe that at some point you usually don’t remember words and sentences, but the feelings remain present. That’s why there is little dialogue in our film – it isn’t essential for the function of memory.”
Why is Sound of Falling a must-see?
If it sounds a little complex, don’t be put off. Although it isn’t always easy to follow, the small-scale stories matter more individually than they do as part of an overarching narrative. Schilinski gives us vignettes of these girls’ lives that prove that, even over the course of 100 years, a lot less has changed than we’d like to think.
© Studio ZentralAt the same time, it isn’t all about the takeaway. Visually, I’ve never seen a film that looks quite like it. Some of the images, which verge on the surreal, will stick with me forever and so much is shot from the perspective of the characters, it really feels as though you’re in their shoes watching everything unfold. Through an overlaid narration and literally seeing things through their eyes, we learn that these girls, often simply dismissed by their families, understand and feel so much more than those around them realise.
Therein lies Sound of Falling’s brilliance: yes, it’ll move you, yes, it looks beautiful, but its message is powerful for everyone. These girls, regardless of age, aren’t children, and shouldn’t be seen as such. They’re young women, and they are much more perceptive than people might think.
© Studio ZentralWhen HELLO! spoke exclusively with Mascha Schilinski, she told us that becoming a mother didn’t change her perspective on womanhood or motherhood at all, though everyone had told her that it would. In fact, like the girls in the movie, and like many women around the world, she felt that she had seen everything growing up.
It’s a heavy watch, and not exactly one for the whole family, but on a day celebrating women’s work and the change they have spearheaded, Sound of Falling is the perfect film to watch. Not only to celebrate the brilliant cinema that women have been making, but to take a second and assess how far the world has really come.
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