Dan and Noit Geva: Noise
It has so many layers this Israeli documentary about a man, who lives in the middle of Tel Aviv and suffers from the noisy surroundings, to the point where he goes bananas, and into an action with surveillance cameras and loudspeakers to identify and scare the noise-makers. He is a filmmaker, this man, he has a family with kids, he has a wife, who tells the story to us in a third-person manner, until she objects to his total obsession and sort of “enters” the narrative.
The point of view is his. He is the one, who shouts to groups of people passing by, or has the police come and ask a homeless person to move from his resting place outside the window of the appartment of the director “with the hyper-acoustic sensittivity” (from the publicity material). He is the one, who goes to the neighbours to ask them to calm down, and he is the one who constantly has a row with drivers, who park their cars in “his” street.
All this forms the fun part of the story, but the film also takes you to hear about how the nazi used sound as a torture instrument, as do many armies and police forces nowadays. The story progresses from the daily, banal noise damage on an individual – that you can easily identify with – to become a small Orwellian metaphor for a society where measures are taken to control communication and movements. It is a style that also another Israeli filmmaker, Avi Mograbi, has been using in several of his critical, political comedies. “Noise” carries succesfully the same tense, funny, critical reflection on a society full of noise on several levels.
Israel, 72/59 mins.
