The History of Sound Blu-ray Review

Director Oliver Hermanus mistakes a meticulously curated diorama for a living, breathing love story in the tender but disappointing The History of Sound. Billed as a sweeping romantic drama in the vein of Brokeback Mountain, the film instead reveals itself to be a dusty folk music travelogue that happens to pass through the trenches of a forbidden romance and then largely forgets its purpose. It is a film of immaculate surfaces and cavernous emotional voids, a handsomely mounted period piece so reverent toward its own tastefulness that it suffocates the very passion it claims to enshrine.

Set during the First World War, the story follows Lionel (Josh O’Connor), a fastidiously repressed musicologist who lugs a primitive acetate disc recorder across rural America in a quest to preserve vanishing folk songs. He is joined by David (Paul Mescal), a rough-edged, effortlessly charismatic man whose presence ignites something Lionel is wholly unequipped to name.

The early reels hum with genuine possibility. O’Connor and Mescal share a tender, watchful chemistry that does much of the screenwriting’s heavy lifting. Their glances across farmhouse tables, the charged silence as they lean in to listen to a crackling acetate play unheard folk songs, works splendidly. These moments promise a film that understands how history is written as much in the heart as in musical archives.

The History of Sound is ultimately a dry, well-dressed period piece that poses as a grand thwarted romance

Then the screenplay makes a catastrophic miscalculation. One of the two lead characters disappears.

For roughly half the film, Mescal’s character is absent, dispatched to the front lines of a war we never see, leaving Lionel to wander through a series of exquisitely wallpapered parlors and picturesque Appalachian hollows. What remains is a plodding, episodic structure in which Lionel knocks on yet another door, sets up his recording horn, and captures yet another folk lament.

The songs themselves are authentic and often haunting. The film’s music supervision is, without question, its greatest triumph but the cumulative effect is that of a tedious slog. You begin to feel the weight of the acetate discs more than the weight of the central relationship. The film is so besotted with the how of early sound recording that it forgets to ask why we should care about the man holding the needle.

Hermanus, working from a screenplay that never solves its own structural rupture, attempts to paper over the dramatic void with a mannered visual scheme. Every shot is a pristine composition, a sepia-drenched tableau of clapboard churches, moth-eaten quilts, and amber lantern light. The period design is unimpeachable. But the camera’s formality only reinforces the film’s central problem. It treats its characters like artifacts, positioned just so behind windows and door frames, forever frozen at a respectful distance. The approach is too refined to let raw feeling sweep viewers away.

The frustrating irony is that the pieces for a genuinely moving film are scattered all over the cutting room floor. O’Connor does soulful work as a man who has trained his entire body to lie, and Mescal, during his all-too-brief screen time, radiates a warmth that makes you ache for the film this might have been. The folk music, captured in mournful a cappella performances and plaintive fiddle tunes, is often extraordinary. It’s a resonant, authentic soundscape that earns the film its title.

But none of that can redeem a script that fundamentally abandons its emotional engine for an entire act. The History of Sound is ultimately a dry, well-dressed period piece that poses as a grand thwarted romance. It’s a film that knows the frequency of a human heartbeat but has forgotten how to make you feel its rhythm.

MUBI delivers a superb 1.85:1 presentation for the movie’s Blu-ray debut. The main feature runs 128 minutes on a BD-50, cleanly encoded in high-bitrate AVC. Exteriors absolutely shine in the crisp cinematography, while interior rooms have slightly inferior definition.

Jaime Ramsay (a frequent collaborator with Hermanus) shoots The History of Sound as if every frame were a large-format photograph from the era it depicts. The defining characteristic is the use of a deeply deliberate, locked-down camera. Static tableaus dominate the film, particularly in the early reels, where Lionel and David’s tentative connection is mirrored by a visual language of restraint and separation.

Characters are often positioned at the edges of the 1.85:1 frame, boxed in by doorways, window frames, and the suffocating floral wallpaper of early 20th-century parlors. The camera forces you to observe them from a painterly distance, a meticulous approach that forces the viewer back in time.

Ramsay’s color grading, which is perfectly translated here, leans into a palette that recalls hand-tinted photographs. Greens are muted, almost sage-like, with a silvery undertone. Skin tones are pale and slightly desaturated, giving the actors a porcelain, ghostly quality that reinforces the elegiac tone. The most significant visual motif is the rendering of gold and amber light. Check the warm glow of a kerosene lamp in a cabin, the last rays of a sun-drenched field, which appears like a memory of a time that is already lost.

Contrast this with the sequences inside the recording studios and academic halls, which are drained of warmth, leaning into a cool, slightly cyan-tinged sterility. The 1080p transfer impeccably manages these subtle temperature shifts without any banding or compression artifacts, maintaining a rock-solid image that never betrays its digital source.

The level of resolved detail is purely cinematic. The weave of a thick wool WWI uniform, the intricate lace on a woman’s collar, and the delicate grain of the wooden recorder box are rendered with pure clarity. You can practically feel the texture of a dusty road or the cold, damp surface of a headstone.

The transfer excels in its handling of deep shadows. In nighttime scenes, black levels are inky and profound without crushing the information within them. You can discern the folds of a dark jacket against an equally dark forest background, a testament to the transfer’s dynamic range.

There is near-universal agreement on The History of Sound’s stellar score and engaging soundtrack populated with folk curiosities from the early 20th Century. They are sumptuously presented in the excellent 5.1 DTS-HD MA surround audio, bolstered by intricate sound design filled by the backwoods of Maine and bustling Italian cities. The period music swells in crystal-clear fidelity, both haunting and pristine. Folk songs are delivered with immaculate vocals and lush dynamics.

The voices of Josh O’Connor and Paul Mescal, recorded live on set by all accounts, have a palpable, chesty resonance locked firmly in the center channel. The accompanying instruments—a finger-picked banjo, a mournful fiddle, a plainspoken guitar—spread tastefully into the left and right fronts with exceptional dynamic range. You can hear the percussive pluck of a string and the subsequent decay of the note hanging in the air of the room. The surround channels provide the natural reverb and wooden resonance of the cabins and churches where they perform, making it feel less like a musical number and more like you are a silent, present observer in the room.

When a subject sings into the large acoustic horn of the Presto recorder, the audio perspective shifts entirely. The mix collapses from the wide surround field into a front-heavy, slightly compressed, and beautifully “boxy” mono-like signal that emanates firmly from the center channel. You can hear every scratch, pop, and the underlying roar of the acetate blank. Creating a warm, granular texture that the track renders with startling realism.

Optional English, English SDH, French and something MUBI calls French Forced subtitles are available in a white font. It’s a bit confusing but they also translate the folk songs. A secondary 2.0 DTS-HD MA soundtrack is included.

Extras

Disappointing for fans, MUBI offers no bonus features on this BD. The disc comes in a clear case with a glossy slipcover available. There is no sign a 4K UHD is planned.

The Blu-ray is coded for Region A.

Full disclosure: This Blu-ray was provided by the label for review. This has not materially affected DoBlu’s editorial process. For information on how we handle all review material, please visit DoBlu’s about us page.