“SOUND OF NOISE”IS SWEET FUN

“SOUND OF NOISE”IS SWEET FUN

Everybody is an artist. Most just haven’t found their medium. “Sound of Noise” by Swedish director and co-writer Ola Simonsson is a slyly sweet tribute to all those lost artists still looking for just the right key.

“Sound of Noise” opened Sunday at the Loft Cinema, 3233 E. Speedway Blvd., building the art house film series Cinema Nocturna which screens every night at 10 p.m. The name implies these special films will be a bit darker, a bit more extreme and more than a bit more thoughtful.

Being lots closer to poetry than cinema, “Sound of Noise” perfectly fits that agenda. There is no sex. There is no violence. Primal rhythms are at the heart of this abstract dream exploring the nature of creativity and that aforementioned relationship between the artist and his medium.

Just as there is a point where language becomes poetry, so must there be a point where sound becomes music. But where is that point? Must music always have a melody? Doesn’t that sound a bit rigid?

What about harmony? Can we have music without melody or harmony? Surely, if any sound contains its own rhythm it must be more than sound…

Then there are musical instruments, where the sound begins – always generated by controlling small physical forces, a breath or a touch, a tap or gentle blow.

But what would it sound like if music was created by much larger forces, such as jack hammers and earth movers and powerful electrical currents?

That’s when we get to in “Sound of Noise.” Sanna Persson plays the performance artist Sanna, always collaborating with Magnus (Magnus Borjeson). Their artform is to descend on a specific location and make music out of random objects lying around.

Their latest work is a magnum opus of four suites, each one to be performed in a part of their city, Malmo, to express a different aspect of the city’s personality. The piece is called “Music for One City and Six Drummers.” 

So first – just like in that classic western “The Magnificent Seven” – Sanna and Mangus must round up five more rebellious drummers. 

“Piece of cake!” you’re thinking, except these adventurous artists run afoul of the city police department’s anti-terrorist chief, that music-hating authoritarian Amadeus Warnebring (Bengt Nilsson).

Amadeus also has a cross to bear. His parents and siblings are all accomplished musicians, while Amadeus is tone deaf. This combination sets up lots of musician jokes and other insights into the uniqueness of the musical artist’s lifestyle.

So the middle two-thirds of “Sound of Noise” is a cat-and-mouse game of the performance artists against Amadeus, who keeps getting closer to thwarting their next attack against conventional music.

But that’s just the plot. You can’t help watching these escapades which take place at a hospital, a bank and a construction site without imagining what it would be like if all the frowning people stuck in traffic around you on the way home from work would spontaneously start honking their horns and revving their engines in time to “Louie, Louie.”

In Swedish, with subtitles.