Ava (Bahia Watson; The Handmaid’s Tale) lives with a hypersensitivity to sound, which makes life feel not worth living. Her doctor’s prescription of exposure therapy is torturous and often ends in panic attacks. After having an extreme panic attack, Ava attempts suicide.
After pleading with her doctor, she’s enrolled in an experimental trial involving an anechoic chamber: the world’s quietest room. Ava believes that room will hold the key to her relief. As the external noise fades, she becomes haunted by the clamor within her own body and plummets into hysteria.
Do you not believe me when I tell you how much it hurts?
Ava
This Fantasia World Premiere is helmed by director Tamara Scherbak who introduces us to Ava via a tight closeup. This initiates the tension that slowly builds throughout the film. Watson doesn’t need much help. With hardly any words in the film, we can read her discomfort.
From the moment the film opens, Watson sells us on her character’s suffering. Sensory overload can come in many forms and through sound design, the audience is given evidence that makes it even easier to empathize with our protagonist.
What stands out most is a statement Ava made to her doctor. She’s obviously been dismissed by medical professionals who have neglected to take her pain and suffering seriously. Ava says, “Do you not believe me when I tell you how much it hurts?”
This line stuck with me long after the short was finished. Often, doctors dismiss our claims as a woman of color or someone living with an invisible illness. After the back and forth, one wonders if the doctor even cares or if they’re even taking the patient’s concern seriously.
This is what leads Ava to attempt suicide. Finally, her doctor notices and gives her the attention she should’ve had in the first place.
A film centered around hypersensitivity to sound means that the sound design was equally as important, if not more so, than the story itself. Sound designer Sylvain Bellemare did an excellent job giving the audience a glimpse into Ava’s auditory experience. From the gradual swell of someone typing on a keyboard or sipping a beverage through a straw to the peaceful moments provided by noise-canceling headphones, each layer of sound (or lack thereof) adds depth to the story.
Co-written by Scherbak and producer Christina Saliba, White Noise shows us how even something that feels so ordinary or automatic can be a true horror for others. This world isn’t too accommodating for those people, and as a result, their cries are unheard, as if the world itself is enveloped in noise-canceling headphones.
White Noise is now playing at the Fantasia International Film Festival.
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
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