Metaphors galore, here is the Noise ending explained, to help you make sense of all the symbolic shots. Noise (Ruido) is a Natalia Beristain-directed film. She also joins the project as a writer along with Diego Enrique Osorno and Alo Valenzuela. The film stars Julieta Egurrola, Teresa Ruiz, Erick Israel Consuelo, Adrian Vazquez and Arturo Beristáin, among other cast members. The film runs for 105 minutes and tells a touching story.
Netflix description of the film reads:
A SEARCH FOR HER MISSING DAUGHTER LEADS A MOTHER TO A SUPPORT NETWORK, WHERE SHE BONDS WITH OTHER WOMEN WHOSE LIVES HAVE BEEN DESTROYED BY VIOLENCE.
Noise Ending Explained
This film starts off by giving us a close look at the protagonist Julia, from a plume of purple smoke, which cuts to her massaging the ringing noise out of her ear, a constant after losing her daughter, Gertrudis. We are given an insight into her daily life and the mundanity of her routine in the context of a traumatic event.
She is seen sitting in front of the prosecutor’s desk when she is called to check the identity of the body. She is then notified that the body is actually not her daughter’s because they forgot to note down that she has a tattoo on her arm. An early indication of how haphazard the legal system is in taking care of victims and close relatives of the victims. After this overwhelming experience, she decides to go to her local support group, where they all share stories of the people they have lost and how they have currently been dealing with it.
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Here she is introduced to a journalist Abril who has been reporting on the different support networks rallying for the return of their children. She takes Julia across towns to look at other support groups and join them in finding her daughter. They tell her that many people, women and children have gone missing from their community.
The only way they all cope is by doing something about it. Every two weeks, the support group members go out to find some clues in the forest. The leader tells her how finding the missing person’s belongings is one of the best ways to get closure in this situation.
As she looks around, she doesn’t find any place where her daughter could be. After searching through multiple camps, a support group and even a truck full of dead bodies from a sex trafficking ring, she has truly been defeated by the search. When Abril and Julia are going back to their hometown, they have a conversation about the dangerous nature of the former’s job. Abril explains that she knows it is dangerous and should especially take care of herself because of her daughter. She adds that perhaps she took this job because she has a daughter.
Abril has kept the morale high in the movie, by helping Julia and reassuring her that there is always room for change. It is truly a shock when some thugs enter their bus forcefully asking for identity documents.
Abril is taken away in the process screaming and asserting her identity and position in front of the kidnappers. None of the people on the bus does anything about it, including Julia. It shakes up the narrative completely, reverting from the silent and broody nature of the first act.
When Julia comes back from the trip to find Prosecutor Zamudio Rodriguez, she accuses the entire force of being the people to take innocent people of the city, even when they’re supposed to be the ones protecting the citizens of the city. Her anger is paralleled in the demonstration outside, where many women have gathered to protest against the violence committed against them in the country. They call out the police and the thugs in the city for assaulting them and keeping them quiet.
At this time, Julia comes across a washing line of embroidered clothing hanging and adds her own with a picture of Gertrudis on the line. It is a symbol, almost like setting her memory free to be a part of something bigger. Julia then joins the protest and starts helping the protestors hide children and women who are expecting. We are shown how the police escalated the situation using violence after the news cameras stopped rolling on them.
Capturing and beating up the protestors, the police started grabbing people one by one. When the police officer punched Julia knocking her down, she sees a figure holding out a hand. Taking it, she sees them give her a last lingering look before going away. The scene shifts to the mysterious figure and Julia standing in a field opposite each other.
Throughout the whole film, the image in the field has been one of solitariness and anxiety, but the presence of the mysterious figure somehow turned the image into one of hopefulness, like Gertrudis is around fighting somewhere.
Noise is now streaming on Netflix.
Do you think the film has an optimistic ending? Let us know in the comments below.
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It seems that both Julia and Ger are dead. From the beginning of the film, the authorities, cartel soldier, and even the other women searching for their own loved ones let her know that it was likely her daughter had been killed. Julia herself was in danger due to her refusal to stop her search. Julia was a shell of a woman, living on faith and the belief that she’d find her daughter. In the end, mother and daughter were reunited in death and while it’s not the happy ending that most would want, it allowed Julia to find Ger. To have written the ending any other way would have diminished the suffering of the thousands of actual families who are going thru the same thing. Wrapping the movie up with a fairytale ending would have lessoned the overall impact of the film.