Anomaly Film Festival Coverage
Sound of Love review
A man’s obsession with an ASMRtist turns into something…else.
Festival reviews will not contain spoilers.
Sound of Love
Directed by Ayuta Yoshikawa
Written by Ayuta Yoshikawa
Starring Yuka Someya and Kashio Atsuki
Sound of Love Review
The Saturday evening feature at this year’s Anomaly Film Festival was the Japanese film Sound of Love. It was preceded by Rat! a short film from the United States. Rat!, like Sound of Love, is a story about someone interacting with online content to unexpected results. Luckily, neither heads down the usual influencer story path. God knows we get enough of those already. Rat! tells the story of a young man who leaves a negative comment on a pop star’s video. He quickly learns that the musician’s fanbase doesn’t take kindly to detractors. It’s a fun one.
As for Sound of Love…well…I’ll start by saying this. One of the things I genuinely love about the genre film festivals that I cover is how far out of their way they seem to go to find movies that are incredibly difficult to review. Anomaly…Amazing Fantasy Fest…the soon to begin Another Hole in the Head Film Festival…they each specialize in bringing us the strangest genre fare they can find. There are more original works in a weeklong festival than you’ll find in theaters during an entire summer. Sound of Love is a perfect example of this.
Moriya (Kashio Atsuki) is obsessed with an AMSRtist. His life turns upside down when he meets the woman, Akiha (Yuka Someya), in real life. The two start a strange relationship based on sound…while avoiding eye contact completely. As Moriya’s obsession grows, their relationship begins to turn into something else entirely.
In some ways, Sound of Love was the strangest movie screened at this year’s Anomaly Film Festival. Keep in mind that this festival featured a slasher musical, not one but two time displacement movies and a movie where a man is abducted because his captor really loves the sound of horns played on a keyboard. What makes Sound of Love so weird is that it plays its story out slowly and directly…and pushes it into unexpectedly odd places. It’s often difficult to ascertain where the mystery is meant to be…or the danger is going to come from.
Things never feel right. Or, should I say, never sound right. Sound of Love begins with a heavy focus on ASMR. Moriya falls in love with the sound of Akiha. When the story moves to an in-person relationship…it doubles down on the importance of sound. Akiha forces him to wear sunglasses as she keeps her own eyes covered at all times. They build a connection based solely on sound. The first half of the movie may leave you wondering where all this is heading. There aren’t many signs to point the way. Just that things don’t sound right.
Where it ends up going won’t be discussed here. What I will say is that it weirder…and heads of in a direction that I didn’t see coming. Bonkers may be too strong a word since Sound of Love never quite gives in to a pace that supports its strangest impulses. A story of obsession, yes. Also, a story about how childhood trauma affects our obsessions. That’s a concept that is introduced late in the
Sound is important to every moment here. As you’d expect…the sound design is excellent. It’s also a beautifully shot film full of strong, if odd, performances. It’s a movie that isn’t like anything you’ve seen (or heard) before. You’ll be guessing at what’s coming next as Sound of Love lulls you with its hypnotic design. The twists and turns that come in the second half of the story are consistently surprising…and fittingly weird. If you can’t spot the pattern yet…I don’t know what to tell you.
Sound of Love is a genre film that defies genre categorization. There’s romance…but not like you’ve seen before. It’s a mystery…but you don’t know what you’re supposed to be looking for. There’s a surprising quasi-science fiction element…but it’s introduced very late in the game. It feels like danger is right around the corner…but it might not be there at all. This is all a long way of saying that Sound of Love is a difficult movie to review. An experimental film with more plot than most…and less than you may want. A movie that fits perfectly inside the realm of the modern genre film festival. Where strange movies you rarely see in your local multiplex can play for the weirdos that want them. I hope this era never ends.
Scare Value
Sound of Love drops the ASMR hook fairly early in the story…but it doesn’t leave behind the aesthetic. In fact, the story doubles down on the pacing and perceptions that define the practice. An unpredictable quasi-love story that heads into places you wouldn’t expect. It heads there slowly…but it heads there with confidence.
