In die Sonne schauen / Sound of Falling

Mascha Schilinski: In die Sonne schauen / Sound of Falling (DE 2025).

Putoamisen ääni / Sound of Falling (title in Sweden).

Germany 2025

Director: Mascha Schilinski

Starring: Luise Heyer, Lena Urzendowsky, Claudia Geisler-Bading, Lea Drinda, Susanne Wuest

    Languages: German

    Distributor: Cinemanse, MK2 Films, subtitles: English

    155 min

    Love & Anarchy 38th Helsinki International Film Festival (HIFF)

    Groundbreaker Gala screening hosted by Ouri Rehn and Inari Ylinen

    Viewed at Bio Rex Lasipalatsi, Helsinki, Mon 22.9.2025 at 18.00–20.35

Inari Ylinen (HIFF 2025): "This epic that instantly placed Mascha Schilinski among the top tier of arthouse cinema entwines the fates of four generations of women and girls on the same German farm."

"R&A’s Groundbreaker Gala film is the critically acclaimed Sound of Falling, which catapulted director Mascha Schilinski into the spotlight following its premiere at the Cannes Film Festival. The film won the Jury Prize at the festival, firmly establishing the German filmmaker’s place among the stars of European art cinema—with only her second feature-length film."

"Sound of Falling is a century-spanning epic that follows the lives of young women and girls across generations on the same German farm. Covering nearly a century of German history, the film only allows historical upheavals to echo faintly into the closed-off world of the farm. The interwoven stories gradually reveal their connections to the viewer."

"The pale-haired Alma lives at the dawn of the 20th century; teenager Erika appears in the 1940s, under the shadow of the Second World War. Rebellious young Angelika comes of age in a divided Germany during the 1980s, while Lenka lives in the present day. Cruel fates, horrors witnessed through keyholes by children’s eyes, and dust-covered photographs tell the story of characters trying to find their place in a society where women’s roles are tightly confined."

"A haunting and breathtaking film, Sound of Falling leaves the audience stunned—and lingers in the mind long after the theatre lights come up." Inari Ylinen

"Mascha Schilinskin arthouse-elokuvan ykköskaartiin kertaheitolla nostanut eepos kietoo yhteen neljä sukupolvea naisten ja tyttöjen kohtaloita samalla saksalaisella maatilalla."

"R&A:n Läpimurtogaalan elokuvana nähdään kriitikoiden maasta taivaisiin ylistämä Sound of Falling, joka nosti ohjaaja Mascha Schilinskin nimen kaikkien huulille ensi-illassaan Cannesin elokuvajuhlilla. Se voitti festivaalilla tuomariston palkinnon vakiinnuttaen saksalaisen Schilinskin aseman eurooppalaisen taide-elokuvan tähtikaartissa vasta hänen toisella pitkällä elokuvallaan."

"Sound of Falling on eeppiset mittasuhteet saava, vuosia ja sukupolvia halkova kertomus nuorten naisten ja tyttöjen elämästä samalla saksalaisella maatilalla. Saksan historiaa sivutaan vuosisadan ajalta, mutta historialliset mullistukset kaikuvat vain etäisesti maatilan suljettuun maailmaan. Yhteen kietoutuvien tarinoiden väliset yhteydet avautuvat katsojalle hiljalleen."

"Vaalea Alma elää uuden vuosisadan alkuvuosia, teini-ikäinen Erika kohdataan toisen maailmansodan varjostamalla 40-luvulla. Kapinallinen nuori Angelika viettää nuoruuttaan 80-luvun jaetussa maassa ja Lenka nykypäivässämme. Julmat kohtalot, avaimenrei’istä lapsen silmin todistetut kauhut ja pölyttyneet valokuvat kertovat tarinaa hahmoista, jotka pyrkivät löytämään paikkansa yhteiskunnassa, jossa naisille määrätyt roolit ovat tiukasti rajatut."

"Pysäyttävä elokuva salpaa hengen ja jää kummittelemaan mieleen pitkäksi aikaa elokuvasalin valojen sytyttyä." Inari Ylinen

AA: Mascha Schilinski's Sound of Falling is a high profile saga of a farming family in four generations. It unfolds in jumbled timelines covering a hundred years and many transformations in the history of Germany, but history is ignored in this tale that is essentially a large scale chamber play like Ingmar Bergman's Fanny and Alexander.

The production is perfect, the cast is excellent, the attention to detail exemplary. This is an epoch movie that is a movie about many epochs. The mise-en-scène often aspires to the condition of the tableau like in early cinema. The colour world is special and ambitious, sometimes like in sepia toning, sometimes emphasizing brown hues. A distant thunder is a recurrent sound motif. Peeking through cracks and keyholes is a constant visual motif. That's how children observe the world of the grown-ups.

We enter the German Empire, the Third Reich, East Germany and contemporary Germany, but the elliptic and intimist way of storytelling makes it hard to tell them from one another. The film focuses on timeless subjects such as growing up, being a woman, and questions of life and death. The protagonists are women, and the question of death intrigues them since early childhood. I would have welcomed an even more pronounced feminist approach, particularly as the story takes places in Germany who has its own traditions both in patriarchy and women's liberation.

Although a lot happens in the movie, it still feel prolonged. There is a needless ritardando approach at times, without a matching intensity. But this is a general malaise in much of contemporary cinema: cinema of duration needs more energy than montage cinema, not less.