MPAA Rating: Not Rated
Director: Danny Madden
Film Pulse Score: 6/10
euphonia happens to be the first feature-length film from writer/director Danny Madden, who at last year’s SXSW won a Jury Award for his animated short, (Notes on) Biology. Madden, along with handling the roles of directing, writing, editing, original music and sound design, is also the leader of a film-making collective known as Ornana.
Madden’s euphonia lays somewhere in between the land of the short film and the feature-length narrative, clocking in at just under the hour mark (54 mins); euphonia’s duration, at times, feels entirely too long or better yet spends too much time building up to the climax. The story-line is interesting enough and proves to be a thought-provoking look into our obsession and dependence with technology. The film’s premise involves, Danny’s own brother, Will Madden’s character increasingly becoming obsessed with his newly purchased audio recorder. At first, he finds himself taking an interest in recording various sounds, whether they be in nature, the suburbs or the city; he captures the soundscapes of life, at first, with an intentive curiosity which slowly evolves into an obsession and a dependency. The audio recorder becomes a part of him, finding himself being only able to hear the world through his recordings and subsequently forms an addiction to capturing the sounds of world around him.
From the outset, euphonia, in most aspects, is rife with your standard debut indie-film trappings – shaky camerawork, a reliance on close-ups, amateur acting with a screenplay that doesn’t seem fully fleshed out. I, do however, give Danny Madden a pass on these critiques, given this is his first feature-length film. The acting is decent enough that the actor’s are able to adequately move the film’s narrative along. The highlight of the performances is easily the chemistry demonstrated between Will Madden and Maria DeCotis as the young high-school students in the midst of a budding relationship. All the interactions between Will and Maria feel heartwarming and genuine and provide a nice counter to the main character’s tribulations facing a life with a distorted auditory perception.
The real standout of the film is Madden’s work in the department of sound design and the original music, along with Jonathan Silva (who also provides the cinematography). All or most of the sounds featured in euphonia were recorded using the actual portable recording device featured in the film, with Madden’s life imitating art as he, himself became quasi-obsessed with capturing sounds for use in euphonia. Madden expertly layers these sounds (movie clips, sound effects, nature sounds and other various field recordings) to create an hallucinating auditory experience that forces the viewer to get lost within the tangled assemblage of sounds mirroring the main character’s own anxieties.
While euphonia meanders a bit too long, never compellingly displaying the main character’s dependency and obsession until much later in the film, which in turns makes the ending seem a bit rushed, although, it was the highlight and showed that one should expect good things to come from writer/director Danny Madden. euphonia turns out to be a decent debut effort, however, Madden does craft an excellent sonic labyrinth perfectly-suited to capturing the main character’s predicament. It will be interesting to see what the future holds for Danny Madden.
