Louder Than Bombs

Memories can be distorted to reframe the past in a more favourable light, but what happens when the truth becomes unavoidable? Joachim Trier’s Louder than Bombs opens with the birth of Jonah's son, but is far more concerned with death. Jonah (Eisenberg) is the son of famed war photographer Isabelle Reed (Huppert), who died two years ago in a car crash. His brother Conrad (Druid), only 12 at the time, doesn’t know her death was a suicide. It’s a secret that threatens to rupture the family’s delicate dynamic once revealed in a forthcoming New York Times article.

Perceiving memory as something malleable, Trier’s delicate use of flashbacks and sound allows the narrative to inch along like a cortège, beautifully conceptualising how the mind seeks to reorganise the entropy of memories into a satisfying narrative. As the membrane between reality and fabrication becomes perilously thin, Isabelle’s aura adopts greater significance for each family member, with Louder than Bombs effortlessly evolving into an abstract, yet emotionally intelligent ghost story.