‘Hearing’ Review: Lê Bảo Continues His Sensory Exploration With an Arresting Study in Silence
Vietnamese director Lê Bảo returns with "Hearing," a slow-cinema family drama premiering in main competition at the Locarno Film Festival, following the acclaim of his 2021 debut "Taste." The film uses spare narrative and intricate sound design to explore an extended family confronting years of silence, rifts and estrangement, marking Lê as a distinctive voice working between closely observed domestic drama and ambient surrealism, drawing comparisons to formalists such as Apichatpong Weerasethakul and Pedro Costa.
The film centres on Ninh, a mechanic who installs decibel meters, and opens with a bravura sequence contrasting a noisy restaurant with a hushed florist's above it, establishing the film's reliance on sonic texture. Ninh lives with his elderly mother following a separation, and the story unfolds in a dusty, working-class Vietnamese community where noise offers release while daily life remains largely muted. Critic Guy Lodge notes the film's exquisite technical qualities, particularly Vincent Villa's sound design, are best appreciated in cinemas, and suggests it will need further festival exposure to secure wider distribution, likely via specialist streaming platforms.
- Lê Bảo's "Hearing" premieres in competition at Locarno Film Festival
- Follow-up to acclaimed 2021 film "Taste" explores family silence via sound
- Praised for sound design but seen as challenging arthouse distribution prospect
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Ninety minutes north of nowhere in particular, this is a film review, not a news event: it covers "Hearing", the new film from Vietnamese director Lê Bảo, as it premieres in the main competition at the Locarno Film Festival in Switzerland, one of the longest-running and most respected showcases for arthouse cinema. Lê Bảo made his name with his 2021 debut "Taste", and this follow-up is being watched closely to see whether he can build on that acclaim.
"Hearing" is a slow-paced family drama that uses very little dialogue, relying instead on detailed sound design to tell its story. It follows Ninh, a mechanic who fits decibel meters for a living, as he lives with his elderly mother after a separation, in a modest Vietnamese community where noise and quiet carry as much meaning as words. Critics have likened Lê Bảo's style to acclaimed filmmakers such as Apichatpong Weerasethakul and Pedro Costa, who are known for unhurried, atmospheric storytelling.
The film matters within the film industry because festival premieres like this one at Locarno often determine whether a smaller, non-mainstream film goes on to find wider distribution, typically through streaming platforms aimed at arthouse audiences rather than general cinema release.
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