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Neighbouring Sounds
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I first encountered Neighbouring Sounds at the 2012 International Rotterdam Film Festival. It has a stylistic verve, married to a tangle of popular genres, that reminds me irresistibly of Paul Thomas Anderson at his best. Director Kleber Mendonça Filho possesses, precociously (after a bunch of acclaimed shorts), that exhibitionistic-virtuosic streak which many young and/or aspiring filmmakers inherit (not always with happy results) from Stanley Kubrick: everything builds to crescendos, clinches, big scenes, slam-bang fusions of tight suspense and thundering music. The streak is on from the first frame here: percussion builds in layers, metronomic cutting, the accumulation of street corners and apartment block fronts and rooms … But that’s where the film manages to jump off the screen, too. Neighbouring Sounds isn’t just movie-crazy (although it’s full of cinematic thrill); step by step, shot by shot, scene by scene, and especially sound by sound (it has a brilliant sonic design), it maps a fraught urban space. This gives the frisson of a genuine reality-effect. Paranoiac surveillance and security in every well-off home fight a hopeless battle against street culture, crime and chance events (such as the poor guy who loses his way home post-party!). Neighbouring Sounds marked the beginning of an impressive feature career for this talented director. MORE Mendonça Filho: Bacurau © Adrian Martin March 2012 |
