THE HISTORY OF SOUND - Mark Reviews Movies

The History of Sound, Mubi

Follow on Facebook | Follow on Twitter | Become a Patron

Review by Mark Dujsik | September 11, 2025

So much about life and the world is ephemeral, and if there's no record of something, there will come a point at which those things will be forgotten, as if they never existed at all. In The History of Sound, that's true of the folk songs the main characters set out to document and record for posterity. It is also the case for the relationship between these two men, who connect in every imaginable way. If no one knows that except for the two of them, is that bond actually real?

This is, then, a love story, in addition to a lovely collection of songs and a depiction of the importance of preserving culture. Because it is between two men and primarily set in the 1910s, that romance is also a tragic one to some extent. We can tell from the start that Lionel (Paul Mescal) and David (Josh O'Connor) are not destined to live a full and long life together, if only because the opening narration from Chris Cooper is filled with such quiet longing and regret. That doesn't mean, of course, that their love isn't real or, for that matter, that it won't last entire lifetimes. No matter how long those lives may be, it's never long enough.

Director Oliver Hermanus' film is about that melancholy fact, but there still is a good amount of joy here. It's in seeing Lionel and David sing the songs they know together, even though they have grown up in different parts of the world and have lived very different lives before they meet, as well as in them listening to and absorbing songs they have never heard. They share so much together over a relatively short period of time that, in another time or place, they might have spent many more years or even decades sharing even more.

Instead, they meet just before the Great War spreads to include most of the world, leaving the chance they'll ever see each other again to fate. After the war, they spend as much time with each other as they can, before the practical realities of them having a life together silently crush any hope that such a thing might happen.

Most of Ben Shattuck's screenplay becomes a series of open-ended questions. Why don't either of these men say what's really on their mind or how they genuinely feel? What might have occurred if they had? How does a bond so sincere and intense come to such a sudden and definitive end, and how long is Lionel going to hang on to some uncertain promise and keep asking himself these, as well as many other, questions?

Lionel is the focal point here. He grew up on a farm in rural Kentucky, where his father (played by Raphael Sbarge) taught him many folk songs by singing them on the porch and his mother (played by Molly Price) would happily listen. Lionel's own musical talent eventually lands him a scholarship at a prestigious conservatory in Boston, and at a local tavern with friends, he hears David quietly playing the piano and singing one of the songs his father particularly loved. David was born in New England, spent his childhood in England, and has a skill for remembering every note of every song he has ever heard, including, somehow, this one.

The first act is about that connection and the others the two form—a tender tale told in playful moments, ones of vulnerability about the past, and some optimism for the future. When the war comes and David is drafted (Lionel is ineligible, due to his poor eyesight), it initially seems a significant hurdle, as Lionel returns to the farm to help his parents and David's letters to him become sparse. Once he returns from Europe, David writes with an offer for Lionel to join him in Maine, where he now teaches at a college, to record folk songs from the locals for the school's archives.

With their reunion, it's as if no time has passed and nothing has come between them, but there's work to be done here, as the two catalog songs that have been passed down through generations. The tunes are of love, loss, grief, regret, and hope, too, and the men find families who harmonize with ease, others who leave the singing to their most talented, and a colony of a generation or two of those who were enslaved, now freed but with the future of their home under threat. This might be the last record that such a place even existed, and although Lionel grew up to see and think nothing of such injustice, the visit to that settlement is the first real sign that David's experience in the war has affected him.

Without saying too much, the rest of the story belongs to Lionel. Years and more pass. His life changes in some expected and unanticipated ways, as people come and go, often because Lionel leaves to find something else. The only thing that remains, perhaps, is that question of David, who is physically absent from Lionel's life but clearly on his mind every step of the way.

Shattuck offers answers eventually, but the mystery of David, played by O'Connor with a passion for life and a sturdy sense of self that seems counter to his apparent disappearance, and Lionel's yearning, subtly conveyed by Mescal, are compelling until that point. The History of Sound makes for a poignant romance and an examination of how neither time nor memory is enough when it comes to music, love, or anything that really matters.

Back to Home

Buy Related Products