Not long ago, a hot search made Uncle Yu's heart tighten-
#全球五分之一的人听力受损 #
That's nearly 1.5 billion people.
Of these, 430 million had moderate or greater degree of hearing loss.
Uncle Yu vaguely felt that he also belonged to this fifth, and he was frightened to quickly lower the volume of the headphones.
Increasingly noisy environments, ubiquitous noise, headphones with long-term high volume.
These are the culprits of hearing loss.
What's even more frightening is that hearing damage is irreversible and can even lead to deafness.
The movie I want to introduce today has made the "silent pain" of deafness the day after tomorrow.
The Sound of Metal
Sound of Metal
"Sound of Metal" received 6 nominations for this year's Oscars.
These include awards such as "Best Picture" and "Best Actor".
Word of mouth is also very good, with a Rotten Tomatoes freshness rating of 97%.
The film is a one-man show by British actor Ritz Ahmed.
He once won the "Emmy Award" for the American drama "Sin Night Run".
This time he plays a drummer Reuben who suddenly lost his hearing.
He has large, deep eyes and a slender, well-defined face that expresses complex emotions.
The character in Voice of Metal is simply tailor-made for him – less words, more expressions.
Ritz Ahmed seized the opportunity to contribute the best performance of his career.
Received a number of Oscar outpost nominations.
Although it is not the most vocal hit, it is already a certainty to be shortlisted.
If you finally win the "Oscar Movie Emperor", Uncle Yu is not surprised.
Ruben and his girlfriend Louise formed a double band.
The musical style is biased towards noise experimentation, and the sound wave is particularly loud and deafening.
One day, Ruben suddenly felt a strong burst of tinnitus.
Then he found that he could not hear any sound, and only a low echo of "buzzing" remained in his ears.
He tried various methods to restore hearing.
For example, pinch your nose and exhale, use your hands to dig your ears, and keep opening your mouth and shutting your mouth.
Obviously, all methods will not help.
He came to the hospital for a check-up and was told, "You only have 20 percent of your hearing left."
And the damaged part is difficult to recover, and all that can be done now is to protect the only 20% of the hearing.
It is conceivable that for a person who is engaged in music, this news is undoubtedly a thunderbolt on a sunny day.
The only remedy is the implantation of a cochlear implant.
But the cost is between $40,000 and $80,000, which Ruben can't afford.
The sudden change profoundly changed Ruben's life.
Not only was he unable to continue playing music, but it was extremely difficult to communicate with people normally.
Louise learned of Ruben's situation and immediately terminated the following tour.
The only thing to do now is to help Ruben adjust to his near-deafness.
It is even more necessary to prevent his drug addiction from re-offending because of this matter.
Introduced, Louise took Ruben to a "community of deaf people" located in the suburbs.
This is a pro bono community dedicated to helping the deaf, where Ruben can learn basic communication skills.
The first lesson he learned was:
"The first thing we have to address is the problem of thinking, not listening."
Compared with physical obstacles, what needs to be overcome is psychological cognitive impairment.
It was definitely not adaptable at first.
Ruben didn't know sign language and couldn't understand what other people were comparing.
Even at the dinner table, people are exchanging warmly in sign language.
Only Ruben was left to eat silently.
During the day with everyone, Ruben was able to control his emotions.
But as soon as night falls, it will be overwhelmed by self-pity and self-pity.
Ruben tried to mingle with everyone.
He began to teach the children here to play drums, which was very popular with everyone.
He learns sign language very quickly and occasionally competes with children, spelling out 26 English letters in sign language.
After losing a round, I am not convinced, and I have to win back another round.
At the dinner table, he also joined the discussion, which was very different from the restraint and loneliness of the first meal.
The film uses a set of clever parallel relationships here to echo the psychological changes before and after Lu.
Ruben walked into the room for the first time and collapsed as soon as he sat down.
Angrily smashing the bread with his fists.
Knead into a ball and continue to crush.
Then laugh uncontrollably and talk nonsense to yourself.
The second time he entered the room, he naturally picked up the bread and scribbled on the paper.
By the third time he entered the room, he could sit down and think calmly.
Enter the room three times, and the emotions are layered.
Almost entirely by expression and body language, Ritz Ahmed completed the process from resistance to acquiescence to acceptance of reality.
His eyes not only capture the fragility of daily life, but also flash the yearning for a new life, which is a very test of acting skills.
Given Ruben's good performance, the founders decided to offer him a chance to continue living in the community.
But these words instantly dragged Ruben back to reality from the good times in the community.
For Ruben, "future" is an extraordinarily heartfelt word.
At the thought of the future, Ruben's determination to stay was shaken.
Because he still wants to regain his hearing, continue to play music, and does not want to stay in the community for the rest of his life.
So, Ruben became a "traitor" and left.
He secretly sold his property and pooled his money to go to the hospital to receive a cochlear transplant that he had in mind.
After the surgery was completed, he returned to the community to tell the founder the reason for leaving:
"I think it's time for me to do something practical and try to save my fucking life." That's why I do it."
Implicitly, staying in the community without salvation is not a real thing.
These words broke the heart of the founder, who said to Ruben:
"This place will never abandon you, it is you who abandon this place."
Ruben was then driven out of the community.
Because this community doesn't just bring the deaf together.
It's more important to connect everyone's hearts and share the same ideas and beliefs.
And what Ruben did was tantamount to denying the meaning and value of this community.
He betrayed the community, which the founders could not tolerate.
Robben, who was expelled from the community, will soon usher in a second disillusionment.
The newly implanted cochlea was activated, and he was looking forward to returning to his previous state.
But the truth disappointed him.
Although you can "hear" the voices of the outside world again.
But the sound is transformed by a cochlear implant and is distorted into a harsh and sharp metallic sound.
At this point, the name of the movie was finally called: The Sound of Metal.
These sounds are completely different from Ruben's original perception.
He was struggling to adapt to the sound.
At the same time, I wondered whether such a metallic sound made sense.
Admittedly, it helps Ruben hear what others are saying and complete normal communication.
But then what?
The sound of the wind, the sound of rain, the sound of crying and laughing, the sound of whistles, the sound of the waves...
All the beautiful sounds in the world have become cold metal sounds.
Here I have to mention the sound design of this film, which is definitely a highlight.
In the ever-changing perspective of the characters, the voice is also constantly changing.
When the picture switches to Reuben's first perspective, the sound follows Ruben's world.
Sometimes it's a low noise, like being in the deep sea, sometimes it's completely silent.
Much of this is thanks to sound director Nicholas Becker.
He has worked on the sound effects of sci-fi blockbusters such as Gravity and Arrival.
This time, he was nominated for the "Best Sound Award" at the Academy Award for "Sound of Metal"
Of course, it is not the explosion sound effect that stimulates the senses, but the clever transformation.
Always using sound to mobilize the audience's emotions.
The voice seems to have become the second protagonist of the movie.
At Louise's family gathering, Ruben listened to her sing a French song she had never heard before.
Everyone present reveled in it.
Reuben was the exception.
He was in tears.
But not impressed by Louise's singing voice.
Rather, it is because the moving voice and the piano tone have become the same sound to the ears.
What is even more sad is that in the long run, the beauty and emotion brought by the sound in the memory will gradually be replaced by such a metallic sound.
Thinking of this, Ruben broke through.
At the end of the film, Ruben makes a bold decision —
He removed the cochlear implant.
In an instant, the whole world was silent.
Without the sound of metal, he once again had unlimited imagination.
Enough to mobilize all the memories of sound and fill in the silent flaws.
After going around in a big circle, Ruben finally figured out that what was more painful than deafness was the loss of the ability to perceive sound.
The acquired deaf Reuben faced many moments of choice along the way:
Choose to stay in the community, or choose to undergo surgery to return to society;
Choose Sign Language, or Metal Voice.
Sign language, although silent, is full of emotion and temperature.
Although the cochlear implant can bring sound, it is a cold and sharp metallic sound.
This duplicity is like a tattoo on Lu himself:
His chest is tattooed "Please kill me" and his fingers are tattooed with "alive", which shows that Reuben himself is a complex of contradictions.
He kept making the wrong choices and didn't regret it until he paid a terrible price.
With Ruben's final choice, the film wants to tell us:
Don't wait until you lose it before you know how to cherish it.
This truth seems simple, but it is often easy to be ignored.
Like Ruben, when he was immersed in his musical world, he never thought about how noise would cause damage to his hearing.
When he was told by the doctor that the situation was not good, he could not return to heaven if he tried to make amends.
The same is true after cochlear implant surgery.
When Reuben was drowned out by the sound of metal, he realized how beautiful every sound that existed naturally in the world was.
Fortunately, he finally succeeded in reconciling with himself.
Use memory, perception, imagination to preserve the sounds in your head forever.
As the saying goes in "East Evil and West Poison":
"When you can't have it anymore, the only thing you can do is to keep yourself from forgetting."