Finally, the love story between Paul Mescal and Josh O'Connor arrives on platforms

Barcelona(The history of sound premiered at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival, was shown at the Americana festival in March and finally arrives on our screens, directly on the SkyShowtime platform).

In a moment of weakness, one might be tempted to agree with viewers who believe that The history of sound is fussy, soporific, and cute. It would be denying the obvious that the film has a languid narrative, that the love story it tells is presented in a subdued manner, and that the general production of the film, at times, seems designed to be accompanied by the hashtag #OnePerfectShot. But if we think about it twice, in the end, there's no need to agree with them. Because if the sixth film by South African director Oliver Hermanus is like this, it's because he clearly wants it to be. It's a stylistic decision, a fully conscious vote of creative rigor.

The charm of The history of sound lies in its stylized containment. This romantic affair between two music students in the early 1920s, when same-sex relationships were not exactly well-regarded, calls for discretion, tempo of adagio and winter colorimetry. If Paul Mescal and Josh O'Connor, two trendy actors, remain silent and hide their affective-sexual bond, it makes sense that the film has a silent spirit. And what cannot be said in words is communicated through songs.

The anthropological journey the protagonists undertake to compile folk songs, as ethnomusicologist Alan Lomax did, turns The history of sound in a very sung film. As in the cinema of the first Terence Davies, popular and traditional music is a unifying element of a film that, in the end, speaks of the sense of belonging. Even if the place you feel you belong to rejects you.