I just finished screening Sound of My Voice, a film about a couple that infiltrates a cult in an attempt to make a documentary. Attempting to expose the leader (Brit Marling), who claims to be from the future, as a fraud. On my way out, I overheard one critic say, “I would have liked it better had the premise not required everyone to be so stupid.” Personally I don’t think that’s a fair approach to judging the film, or any film for that matter.
I will give a little leeway in some respects to the complaint lodged above for reasons I won’t go into here so as to not spoil the film, but on a whole, and after talking with the person briefly, I felt their chief issue was they felt they would never fall under the spell of a cult leader and anyone that would is a trusting and ignorant fool. Well, depending on how you view cults, their leaders and their followers that may be an accurate description. So is it fair to fault a film for accomplishing an accurate portrayal of what you’re describing? What this person is actually asking for is a different film about something else.
Where does such a view of films end? Is Alice in Wonderland bad because you never would have followed the rabbit? Is The Godfather bad because you would never owe a debt to the Don? Is 12 Angry Men bad because Henry Fonda would have never convinced you? Is The Empire Strikes Back bad because who gives a shit if Darth Vader is your father, dude is mean?!?
The answer to those questions is obviously no, because one of the goals sought by films is to put the audience in these situations, deal with the repercussions and open us to a world we never would consider. Yes, Alice would have displayed more responsibility by not following the white rabbit, but the story would have been far less interesting.
The person I mentioned above had a few other complaints, one of which was to say there are so many other films like it, which I also don’t agree with. Sound of My Voice may hold some comparisons to last year’s Martha Marcy May Marlene in terms of the subject matter it deals with, but I don’t think the films are necessarily linked and I can’t name many other films that are like it, though I think Dogtooth could be viewed as a tonal father to this film even if Sound of My Voice is clearly the lesser of the two.
As for any further comments, I’ll get into those when I write my full review. I just saw the comment above as a good reminder that we have to stop ourselves from thinking everyone thinks the way we do if we’re to live the lives of the people on screen and judge them based on their situation and their choices, not ours. Of course, a film must also do its job and allow us to make that separation and live in that world while it’s playing. That last fact is something I think speaks more to the problem the person I quoted above had with the film than their actual complaint.
Sound of My Voice hits limited theaters this Friday, April 27, and I’ll have a full review at the end of the week, but for now I thought this may make an interesting topic for discussion.
