The sound of silence

I've seen a couple of films of late that have led me to believe that image do not necessarily need sound to accompany them.

The first was 'Hard Candy' (the film where a child turns the tables on a pedophile) which only has a couple of outbursts of noise/sound. The silence that pervades the majority of the film helps ground the film in reality as well as making the scenes of tension all the more riveting. As a viewer you are well aware of the lack of sound and it actually makes you feel uncomfortable, which I'd say is the film's desired effect given its premise.

The other film was the NZ classic 'The Quiet Earth'. What better way to emphasise the isolation of being the only person on earth than having virtually no music. This is also the perfect accompaniment to watching Bruno Lawerence go slowly insane (for example, strutting around in a dress).

What these two films show is that silence (or minimal sound) if used appropriately is a better soundtrack than say a booming orchestral score. As an interesting contrast, there was an episode of 'Masters of Horror' on TV the other night called 'Sounds Like'. In it an office drone has a heightened sense of hearing. For example, to him, the sound of his wife knitting sounded like a carving knife being sharpened. This acute sense actually drives him insane and as a viewer you definitely feel in a similar way due to the noisy atmosphere of the film.