Movie Wave Home
Composed by
Rating
Album running time
Performed by
Orchestration
Engineered by Released by Artwork copyright (c) 2005 Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc.; review copyright (c) 2005 James Southall |
MARCH OF THE PENGUINS Beautifully-crafted
music for an inspirational tale A review by JAMES SOUTHALL Penguins are one of nature's wonders. A big penguinphile
myself (there, I've said it - I'd never expected that information to make its
way into a review), their extraordinary ability to survive - and, indeed, thrive
- in the harshest conditions on earth never ceases to amaze me. Working
wonderfully well together, yet retaining extremely distinct personalities from
one another, they see off numerous predators, both from the sea and from the
weather, coming through the toughest winters still intact. A story about a
family of emperor penguins, covering a yearly cycle in their lives, has been
turned into a documentary by the French filmmaker Luc Jacquet, and has become a
real sleeper hit in America. When first released in France it featured an
original score by composer Emilie Simon, but the American release has been
rescored by Alex Wurman. Wurman is an alumnus of Media Ventures where he wrote
(uncredited) additional music for various Hans Zimmer scores, but unlike other
MV graduates, his solo scoring career has not involved leaping from one $100m
blockbuster to the next, but following the rather more traditional route of
scoring various independent films, most notably Thirteen Conversations About
One Thing and Confessions of a Dangerous Mind. Also unlike his
fellow MV graduates (to be a bit harsh), he seems to have a distinctive voice of
his own and he isn't afraid to impose his own musical personality on a score -
which is certainly to be commended! March of the Penguins is easily the strongest score by
Wurman to be released on CD so far. He writes in his brief liner notes how
the film's lack of dialogue (though it does feature narration by Morgan Freeman)
was liberating and gave him a rare chance to write expressive music, and this
shows in the results. Natural history documentaries do provide composers
with fine opportunities - as shown by George Fenton's recent scores for The
Blue Planet and Deep Blue - though Wurman adopts a very different
approach here than Fenton did when he scored the superlative Life in the
Freezer, David Attenborough's documentary about wildlife in the Antarctic
(which is one of the most wonderful things I've ever watched on
television). There, Fenton very much emphasised the bleak conditions with
his synthesised music, but here Wurman gives the "characters" a
wonderful warmth, playing against the conditions, and really humanises them - as
the film tries to do - with his suggestions of emotions. Indeed, the score this most resembles is Mark Isham's
excellent IMAX score Galapagos. It opens with an expressive and
beautiful portrait of the wilderness in "The Harshest Place on Earth",
with Wurman's distinctive music proving to be wonderfully colourful and
detailed. Later, the composer introduces really genuine emotion:
"Found Love" could come from a proper Hollywood romance; "First
Steps" is really touching, capturing the love of a mother; "The
Dangers Return" offers a different set of emotions and is tense and
anguished; but then "Reunited" offers the perfect antidote, with some
lovely piano music. With orchestration favourite flute, bassoon, piano and
harp, Wurman paints a wonderful picture of these remarkable animals and the
environment in which they must somehow survive, and he does so with a great deal
of flair. March of the Penguins is a beautiful, uplifting score and
makes a terrific album. Buy
this CD from amazon.com by clicking here! Tracks |