MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
In the film "The History Of Sound," two young men search for authentic folk tunes as they hike through the backwoods of Maine. Critic Bob Mondello says the World War I era romance is a story of music and heartbreak.
BOB MONDELLO, BYLINE: For Lionel, even as a child, music was more than sound.
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PAUL MESCAL: (As Lionel Worthing) My father said it was a gift from God how I could see music, how I could name the note my mother coughed every morning, what the dog across the field was barking.
MONDELLO: A Kentucky farm boy, Lionel grows up dirt poor but gifted enough that in 1917, his town's music teacher gets him a scholarship to study in Boston. He's out drinking with friends there one night when he hears something and cocks his head.
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JOSH O'CONNOR: (As David White, singing) I walked for miles and miles.
MESCAL: (As Lionel Worthing) I know that song from home. Excuse me.
MONDELLO: He walks over to the piano.
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MESCAL: (As Lionel Worthing) Where'd you learn that?
O'CONNOR: (As David White) Some forest in England.
MESCAL: (As Lionel Worthing) My father used to sing it back in Kentucky.
O'CONNOR: (As David White) Did he? David White.
MESCAL: (As Lionel Worthing) Lionel Worthing. I didn't think people around here knew songs like that.
O'CONNOR: (As David White) Well, they don't. This is a hobby in the summers, collecting tunes. What else do you know?
MESCAL: (As Lionel Worthing) More than you, likely.
MONDELLO: They spar for a bit, David batting away most of the songs Lionel mentions until he says...
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MESCAL: (As Lionel Worthing) How about "Silver Dagger"?
MONDELLO: Now it's David's turn to cock his head.
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O'CONNOR: (As David White) No.
MESCAL: (As Lionel Worthing) Oh, it's such a pretty song.
O'CONNOR: (As David White) Well, come on. Let's hear it.
MESCAL: (As Lionel Worthing) I don't usually sing like this with everyone talking.
O'CONNOR: (As David White) Oh. Excuse me.
MESCAL: (As Lionel Worthing) No.
O'CONNOR: (As David White) Quiet, please.
MESCAL: (As Lionel Worthing) I'm sorry. I didn't mean that.
O'CONNOR: (As David White, laughing) Now you have to sing.
MONDELLO: So he does.
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MESCAL: (As Lionel Worthing, singing) Don't sing love songs. You'll wake my mother. She's sleeping here right by my side.
MONDELLO: Lionel, played by Paul Mescal, seems almost in a trance as Josh O'Connor's David listens wide-eyed. They drink and trade songs and, near dawn, leave the bar for David's apartment, where they fall without much thought into an embrace and then a romance that only ends when David's drafted into World War I.
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O'CONNOR: (As David White) I leave this week.
MONDELLO: Lionel, whose eyeglasses make him ineligible, tries at first to make a joke.
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MESCAL: (As Lionel Worthing) Send chocolate. Don't die.
MONDELLO: David doesn't send chocolate, but two years later, he does come back and asks Lionel to join him for a summer in rural Maine recording local folk songs on Mr. Edison's wax cylinders. It's an unfamiliar concept to the locals.
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MESCAL: (As Lionel Worthing) Sound comes down this big horn here and shakes this needle which cuts a line in the wax.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: (As character) How's that catch the sound?
MESCAL: (As Lionel Worthing) Put your hand on your throat. Now hum.
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MONDELLO: David's look as he watches Lionel would melt all the wax in the world. Their summer of ethnomusicology is eventful and passionate, but the outside world also intrudes. And as the weather cools and it's time to part, Lionel feels a chill from David. In the film's second half, director Oliver Hermanus takes the story to Italy and Britain, but it's in the hill country of Maine and Kentucky that he creates a sort of music-filled Eden for these two.
Based on what was originally a short story by screenwriter Ben Shattuck, this tale of gay longing shares some narrative DNA with "Brokeback Mountain," but its closeted lovers are even less vocal. And as the heartbreak deepens, the filmmaker unfortunately seems determined to match their restraint with his own, which leaves the music to lift and carry "The History Of Sound," music that exalts and wounds and haunts. I'm Bob Mondello.
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UNIDENTIFIED ACTORS: (As characters, singing) What is this that that cast thee down? Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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