From Cannes: "Louder Than Bombs" Disjointed but Touching

Filled with mesmerizing visual sequences, director Joachim Trier’s “Louder Than Bombs” is a captivating though at times disjointed narrative exploring the nature of grief. Three years after the suicide of their mother, famous photojournalist Isabelle Reed (Isabelle Huppert), husband Gene (Gabriel Byrne) and two sons Jonah (Jesse Eisenberg) and Conrad (Devin Druid) still struggle to move on. As they try to understand the mother they barely knew, they are forced to confront the reality of their own personal failings.

Although the screenplay (from Trier and co-writer Eskil Vogt) occasionally meanders in transitions between each of the three men’s narratives, Trier more than compensates with a surfeit of beautiful montages, assisted by cinematographer Jakob Ihre. Memory is often intermingled with fantasy in juxtaposition to present-day reality, and scenes featuring the deceased Isabelle possess a lulling, dream-like quality. Another one of the film’s most memorable sequences features voiceover narration by Conrad set to a kaleidoscopic array of visuals.