SYNOPSIS
After experiencing hearing loss and strange internal sounds, the filmmaker meets Somchai at the hospital, sharing similar symptoms. Through conversations about noises in their bodies, she explores the boundary between 'sound' and 'noise,' interpreting her condition within Korean society's context. Their internal sounds expand into pathways examining medical realities, social alienation, and labor politics. Moving between personal claustrophobia and wonder, the film reveals how workers whose bodies vibrate with sound are structurally ignored and erased.
REVIEW
Have you ever wondered if you might be part machine? The narrator of Noise: Unwanted Sound begins to lose hearing in her right ear, accompanied by tinnitus. A doctor’s diagnosis is as direct as it is unsettling: “Your ear is becoming mechanical.” Like others struggling to describe sounds only they can hear, she begins to trace the sensory and psychological shifts brought on by this sudden condition.
Using the relationship between body and labor as its central motif, the film frames the modern condition of human mechanization through an ailment that arrives like an uninvited guest. Rather than focusing on clinical causes, it expands the narrator's personal illness into a shared affliction—one that can touch anyone who labors. In doing so, it reframes a private symptom as a symptom of society itself. Drawing from director Jung Hyejin’s own recent experience, this compelling essay film widens its inquiry to encompass family trauma and the traces of social oppression.
DIRECTOR'S NOTE
One day, without warning, I lost hearing in one ear. While still reeling, I met Thai migrant workers afflicted with the same condition. Seeing their bodies and hearing their stories, I realized my crisis was not mine alone—it was ours. It was the story of my grandfather’s generation, who blamed themselves for workplace injuries. It was the story of those who demanded dignity, only to be cursed by a broken system. It is the story of a nation grown numb to the daily news of workers’ deaths. Words began to spill out of me; through the disorienting lens of my unbalanced senses, I wrote this story in equal parts anger and grief.
