Rent The History of Sound (2025)

Sheet Music, Longing, and a Missing Spark - The History of Sound review by griggs

For the first forty minutes, I was properly in: a 1920s Brokeback Mountain with sheet music instead of saddles, and a soft ache humming under every scene. The melancholy feels lived-in, not sprayed on.

Paul Mescal and Josh O’Connor are the best argument for the film. They nail that first love / lost love / forbidden love longing — the look you give someone when the room isn’t safe. Which is why the strangest thing is how weirdly buttoned-up it feels. With those two, and this premise, you expect some heat — not explicitness, just presence: desire that stays in the shot long enough to register. Instead, the film keeps cutting away, leaving the messy new-relationship stuff in the gaps.

It also starts to sprawl like an overlong novel, with a middle you could lift out and barely notice. The craft is gorgeous, almost too tasteful: curated sadness, and carefully arranged. The voice-over framing is beautiful, but it lands slightly unearned because everything else holds you at arm’s length.

For Those Who Like it Long and Slow. - a Fascinating film about song-collecting in early 20th C - The History of Sound review by PV

OK so I really wanted to love this film. The South African gay director made MOFFIE a superb film from 2020, based on his own experience I think.

This is from a short story, which seems a sort of fictionalised account of famous song collector Alan Lomax and/or his father John, with added value with the gay love affair.

To be honest, this could have been an hour-long TV drama, in fact 48 minutes to allow for adverts. I say that even as I liked the film BUT I was expecting a long ride and got it - and I am a big fan of songwriting and the history of it, so this was right up my alley. More impatient viewers may switch off which is a shame because the final scenes (no spoilers) are crucial and made sense of all that has gone before.

One issue I have with this story is that I really do not BELIEVE the character,. WOULD someone born and brought up in such dire poverty turn down the chance to live the high life, and not a normal working class life in Europe either, but a seriously loaded upper class one? I don';t buy it. This was my issue with that 1993 Indecent Proposal - as if someone would really turn down $1 million dollars for doing the dirty for a few minutes. Maybe I'm just cynical. No, not maybe....

Anyway, I did not dislike this BUT be warned, you need to be in the right mood for it, let it wash over you.

I felt the inclusion of black families singing traditional British folk songs was pushing it, a tad too tickbox for me. And no, it does not always rain in Britain - as I remind Paddington fans worldwide always. In fact Rome has more annual rainfall than London, fact.

Nothing explicit here sex-wise so fine for any young one who may miraculously have managed to retain an attention span in our age of AI slop on social media turning em all into brainrot zombies.

3 stars