What Happens in Sound of Falling?
The complete story of Sound of Falling, from the first scene to the last, in 717 words (about 3 minutes). Spoilers throughout.
Spoilers ahead
The film is structured non-linearly, shifting between the four different time periods, but all set on the same farmstead in the Altmark region, where gestures, conversations, and situations recur over time.
Alma, age 7, grows up on a rural farm with her many siblings. Alongside daily fieldwork and communal gatherings, death is a recurring presence. Alma witnesses burial preparations after a young boy named Erwin dies, and again when her great-grandmother Frieda passes. Inside, the house displays framed post-mortem photographs of deceased relatives, including of a dead child also named Alma. Alma is given a black dress that once belonged to that child, and she reenacts the pose from the photograph.
Alma’s older brother Fritz loses a leg from an alleged work accident, but Alma recalls her parents deliberately caused the injury in the barn, pushing Fritz from the threshing floor so he would be deemed unfit for military service. Fritz is confined to bed, in severe pain, and is intimately cared for by the young maid Trudi, who also tends to their mother Emma when her health deteriorates without medical explanation. Alma witnesses crude behavior by drunken farmhands, including Trudi being grabbed, and grows increasingly alert to the secrecy and silence of adults.
Alma experiences moments of isolation, including being left unseen during a game and falling ill with a fever. She secretly observes her parents arranging for her sister Lia, who is to be sent away to work as a maid for a stranger but commits suicide by throwing herself under a carriage. Soon afterward, her body is returned to the farm, and the family stages her post-mortem photograph, presenting her death as another “work accident.” Alma is left with only images of her sister.
Teenage sisters Erika and Irm live on the same farm. Their Uncle Fritz, now in his 40s, remains bedridden with his leg amputation, while Erika’s older brother oversees farm labor. Erika pretends to be physically disabled by binding her leg and using crutches, and slips into Fritz’s room to silently observe him. After a daytime visit, her brother reacts violently to her ignoring his calls, while Erika responds with a defiant grin. After a separate nighttime visit, Erika slips back into bed beside Irm and avoids explaining her absence.
We also briefly see Erika at twilight as she joins a group of young women, some with children, who slowly wade fully-clothed into the river, looking outward as the water rises around them.
Irm now lives on the farm with her husband Albat and teenage daughter Angelika, alongside her brother Uwe and his teenage son Rainer. When the family is introduced there are intimations that Angelika is a victim of sexual abuse from her uncle. Angelika observes Irm’s humiliations during village gatherings, including a birthday car prank and an eel-catching party game, which Irm dismisses as harmless.
Angelika engages in provocative and boundary-testing behavior, including physical dares, drawing attention from men, and flirtation with her cousin Rainer and uncle Uwe. One night, Angelika returns home intoxicated, and Rainer sees her naked; they briefly lie together before Rainer angrily accuses her of sleeping with his father and leaves her alone, in tears.
Angelika tests her own safety, both assisting her father with a combine harvester, and swimming to a dangerous riverside in front of her mother. Angelika recounts how her mom Irm failed to drown herself as her aunt Erika did after the war. At a garden gathering, Angelika drifts off, plays with perception by removing her glasses and standing upside down, and dares Rainer to start a fire in the barn. During a family photo, Angelika runs away and appears only as a blurred, ghostly shape in the Polaroid. She is not seen again.
Christa renovates the farmhouse with her husband Hannes and their daughters Lenka (12) and Nelly (5). Family life centers on shared meals, river outings, nighttime comfort, and play.
Lenka befriends Kaya, a confident older village girl whose mother recently died. Kaya arranges a sleepover at the farmhouse, where Christa sings her a lullaby. Lenka begins closely imitating Kaya: joining in her risky games, copying her ice cream choices, and adopting her confident posture.
During a game of hide-and-seek, Nelly climbs to the barn’s threshing floor, spreads her arms, jumps, and is seen lying motionless in the hay.
