NOISE

Belgium, 2023, 89 minutes, Colour.

Ward Kerremans, Sallie Harmsen, Johann Leysen, Jesse Mensah.

Directed by Steffan Geypens.

Noise is a Belgian film, from Flanders.

The film divided audiences, some finding it boring, others incomprehensible. On the other hand, it has been praised highly for its drama, sense of menace, psychological portrait. This review favours the latter.

It opens ominously with a young woman running into a lake, her husband chasing her, diving into save her but failing. The sequence is played later, as it preys on the mind of the ageing husband, and we see that the scene was more complicated than we understood at the beginning.

Then the film offers a happy family, husband and wife in love, their baby son, moving away from the city to the husband’s father’s country home – near the industrial plant that he managed.

There are two ominous developments. The first focuses on the title of the film, the various noises that affect the son, the crying of his baby and his sometimes desperation (and the audience always apprehensive the something might happen to the child), industrial noises, noises from the imagination. The second focuses on the past of the industrial plant, its closure, its effect on the town, on the various people who work there, the suggestion of deaths and injuries, of cover-up by the authorities.

And the film develops themes, especially with the son trying to work with his father, now in aged care, to solve the mystery of what happened with the industrial plant. And there is always the threat to the child, and some alienation from his wife, a significant presence, with her catering company.

There are some dramatic unfoldings, more menace, touches of violence.

For audiences who enjoy this kind of psychological probing, Noise is very interesting.

1. A Belgian film? From Flanders?
2. The setting, the remote mansion, the town, the bakery, the market? The industrial plant, vast, interiors? The musical score?
3. The ominous opening, the mother, walking into the lake, her husband diving in to save her? The later images, her carrying her son, Pol rescuing his son and not his wife? The aftermath?
4. The title, the sound throughout the film, the baby crying, industrial noise, voices, imagining sounds? And the effect on Matthias?
5. Matthias and Liv, the baby Julius? The happy couple, inheriting the house from capital, Matthias’s father? Settling in, the hopes? The ideal family? Liv and her catering service?
6. Liv going into town, the reaction of the woman in the bakery, the woman at the market? Comments about Pol? His history in the town, the industrial plant, sewage, accidents, intimation of deaths, intimation of cover-ups? Live and bewilderment?
7. The visit of Timmi Liv’s brother, support, the moving in, friendship with Matthias? Later helping out, the visits, Matthias turning on him, the visit to the plant, Matthias attacking, Timmi wounded, rescued by the youngsters?
8. Matthias, his relationship with his father, the past, his father, wandering from the aged care home, Matthias taking him back, wanting to bond with him? The issue of the plant, the documents, the blueprints, the exploration, the discovery of the body, the clash with Timmi?
9. Matthias, absorbed, the scenes with the baby, at night, Liv’s sleeping through, Matthias getting up, rocking the baby, audience apprehension that he would harm his son? The effect of the noise, his becoming more remote, clashing with live?
10. The visits to the aged care home, the consultations with his father, his father and the issue of the cover-up?
11. The further exploration, the discovery of the bodies, the extension of the plant under the house?
12. The dangers, the sense of menace, especially for the baby? The resolution? The truth? A happy future?