Mascha Schilinski’s striking second feature, Sound of Falling, is a collection of misery and hopelessness for four German girls spanning across a century. The film captivates and confuses, demanding your attention through the melancholy and bleak storytelling. Indeed, the writer-director isn’t interested in convincing you just how much women endure—we already know this. But she definitely doesn’t want you to forget it either.

In the opening sequence, a young Erika (Lea Drinda) walks through the halls of her family’s rural farmhouse on one leg using crutches. We understand soon after that her leg isn’t actually broken. She has merely tied it up to experience the loss of a limb. In fairness, Erika’s curiosity sparks from her uncle Fritz (Martin Rother), who had his leg amputated. It’s as if she (like many of the girls and women in this story) long for some type of painful experience.

Just minutes later, Erika finally answers her father’s beckon to tend to the pigs, only to be met with a ferocious slap. Right there, we get a sense of Schilinski’s ambitious storytelling. Erika doesn’t wince nor cry. Instead, she gazes right into the camera with a wicked grin, almost as if this pain is most pleasing to her.

Like several of the young girls and women in this story, physical harm, death, and tragedy loom around them constantly. It’s no wonder they often fantasize about experiencing these things for themselves. Take the adorable little Alma (Hanna Heckt), who had similar curiosities to her descendant Erika decades earlier in the same house. In between joyously running through the house with her sisters and playing harmless jokes on the maids, Alma sees too much too soon, especially for her tender age.

Sound of Falling toggles between loss of innocence to overt trauma.

The first sign of this comes when the film reveals the true reason for younger Uncle Fritz’ (Filip Schnack) lost limb. Often, Alma peaks through keyholes to catch glimpses of occurrences the adults would never dare bring up in front of her. Just like that, we witness Alma’s innocence escape, paving the way for more dreary happenings to come. And they appear indeed as scenes later, we come to know Angelika (Lena Urzendowsky), who battles the public perception of her sexuality even though she’s a victim of unwanted advances. She can’t get her heart to stop on command, but at least she can disappear and leave this miserable life behind.

One could argue that that’s the beauty of Schilinski’s lens. The encounters on this farm connect the characters through blood or experience, albeit rarely good memories. Even in the present day, when hot summers lead to playful gatherings and ice cream, a visiting preteen Lenka (Laeni Geiseler) is left to wonder why a strange man’s gaze could ruin a harmless moment in her bathing suit and strip her of all joy. These girls are connected through their shared experience of female anxiety and trauma, longing to break free of their gloom by escaping or death itself.

Schilinski’s filmmaking enables you to feel through every minute of Sound of Falling.

Emotionally gripping as it may be, Sound of Falling requires patience to sit through thanks to a script that doesn’t let up on its characters’ anguish. Additionally, its nonlinear storytelling makes the film play out like a collection of experiences, where it may be difficult for mainstream audiences to latch on and stay with all the moving parts. You may not walk away from Schilinski’s sophomore feature understanding everything you’ve just witnessed, but it’ll pierce you emotionally, one way or another.

To be fair, that’s the one thing you can expect with certainty—a film stuffed with devastating emotion, only heightened by its technical achievements. Cinematographer Fabian Gamper’s compositions invite us in to welcome the darkness both emotionally and visually. Scenes are often paired with delayed cuts, prolonged glares, and interesting camera angles to match the experiences we witness on screen. The downside is that these moments never build towards criticisms of generational pain when it comes to coming of age. They simply exist, teetering on the lines of exploitation as a result of defining these characters as a product of their trauma.

Emotionally gripping as it may be, Sound of Falling requires patience to sit through thanks to a script that doesn’t let up on its characters’ anguish.

It’s not hard to tell that Sound of Falling will generate mixed reviews among general audiences. Between the incessant agony, nonfluidic storytelling, and jarring reliance on female misery, it’s a long watch that requires patience and mental preparedness. Funnily, this is also the type of film where a singular watch may not suffice to enable all of Schilinski’s messaging to pierce through. One thing is certain about it, however. Through 100 years of women and girls suffering through trauma, it feels as if we still have so long to go.

Sound of Falling premiered at the 2025 (78th) Cannes Film Festival.