Magical History Tour: Meet the Sound – Sound in Film, Noises in Spaces

The first sound in a film to be heard by a public audience at the new Arsenal cinema was the bone-chilling bang with which Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s MEMORIA begins. The search for the origin of this sonic phenomenon forms the starting point of the film – what could be more apt than to pick up this same trail, vary it slightly and place an exploration of the possibilities and different variations of cinematic sound at the heart of this summer’s edition of the Magical History Tour? All the more reason to do so given that the new Arsenal boasts outstanding acoustics (sound meets design!) and can reproduce all standard sound formats, including Dolby Atmos. No sooner said than done: this film historical program presents 14 hugely varied sonic architectures, brings various audio technologies to life and gives space to complex sound designs. And it invites audiences to listen to sound as an integral part of the film experience and use all their senses to grasp how it establishes a feeling of immersion, creates atmospheres or produces disorientation, anticipates the images or contradicts them, amplifies them or overpowers them. Meet the Sound – multi-layered, masterful soundtracks that equally raise important questions about the fundamental relationship between image and sound. (Milena Gregor)