17/03/2021 - Finnish-American slashers are not standard fare these days, so we took the opportunity to delve deeper into this one just before its premiere at SXSW

It's not every day that you hear about Finnish-American slashers, but Alex Noyer is here to satisfy the need. “I am Finnish! My mother is Finnish, and the producer, Hannu Aukia, is also a Finn – there are quite a few of them in Sound of Violence [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Alex Noyer
film profile],” he says before the SXSW-hosted world premiere of his take on a girl who, following a childhood tragedy, pursues a career in music in a rather unorthodox way.

Cineuropa: It's funny that we are talking after all these Oscar nominations for Sound of Metal. Are people finally starting to appreciate something other than just visuals?
Alex Noyer: It's an awesome film, and it's interesting that we have these like-minded titles and we both deal with the loss of hearing. I made a documentary called 808, and it was about a drum machine which revolutionised hip-hop. That drum machine took over my life, so then I started to develop a horror concept. “Hey, you know what? After five years documenting a drum machine, how about I kill someone with it?” That resulted in the short Conductor.

People were praising the effects, but I had more of an interest in the character. I started working on her universe and backstory, and sometimes, when you have an idea that you can explain in one sentence, it speeds up the development. I could go up to people and say: “My movie is about a killer who makes music through her murders.”

It's a good elevator pitch! But I was also thinking about someone like Buffalo Bill in The Silence of the Lambs, obsessed with the idea of a “woman suit”.
Alexis [played by Jasmin Savoy Brown] is committed to her art. I wanted to make sure she was an artist, rather than a serial killer, even though her art brings collateral damage. The movie is also about that, about art versus reality and realising what it takes to achieve your ambition.

My father is a painter, and when you talk to artists about what they do, you can see the switch flip to “on”. I like to think that I exacerbate reality in my work, and the creative journey is inherently destructive anyway – it just needed to be pushed. I also wanted people to be conflicted about it, though. I had a conversation with some horror producers, and I told them that shifting this paradigm and opting to follow the killer was one of the most fun challenges. That's how I convinced Jasmin to take on the role – it wasn't just gratuitous bloodshed.

You use sound to make certain scenes feel much more violent and brutal. How did you want to achieve this without it getting too exaggerated and sliding into comedy, perhaps?
I was surrounded by amazing people, and when making my short, we already learned how to juxtapose scenes of murder with music. We couldn't push it too far, but it had to be noticeable. I worked with Jussi Tegelman, another Finn, and we knew how to give it the presence it needed without trying to take away from the character. Likewise with Jaakko Manninen – another Finn! – Alexander Burke and Omar El-Deeb, who created the music that allowed for the process that Alexis follows in her experiment. We wanted the music to grab you, without shouting at you.

When we were making the short, I said: “We need to hear the murder in the flesh, but we also need to hear the music, and the flesh needs to be a tone in the music.” They thought I was crazy. “Ok, I'll take that, but can we do it?” Jasmin is also a musician, and that helped a lot.

Whenever she gets to hear these sounds, the reaction is almost orgasmic. With a male protagonist, I guess we have seen it before – killers getting sexual satisfaction out of their deeds.
I have never seen a man having such artistic sensibility in murder. I grew up surrounded by inspiring women, although none of them were killers, and as a father of two daughters, a lot of stories that come to me have female protagonists. I could never imagine Alexis as a man. When we added the condition of synaesthesia, it was not meant as a sexual connotation, but as an artistic high. I was told there was no sensuality in the story, but there is – in the commitment to the craft.

I wanted it all to be believable, in a weird way. With violence, when we go over the top, we take it out of reality. When we take it too seriously, we lose the artistic vibe of the killer. I read that horror writers never celebrate violence – they denounce it. It's not in order to glorify it; it's to let it out. And again, as a father of two daughters, who are now too young but will one day watch this movie, I hope they will feel empowered. Not to go out on some violent spree, but to have creative release and freedom. This movie takes it to the next level in order to deliver the message that you have to live your truth.