Buy it... if the time is right to finally hear a completely fresh, if not overbearingly brutal orchestral action score that is as harmonically fascinating as it is rhythmically brutal.

Avoid it... if you prefer the more easily enjoyable fluff being written for fairy tales by the average American composers of the modern age.

Marianelli

The Brothers Grimm: (Dario Marianelli) Whenever you approach a Terry Gilliam film, whether you're a film reviewer, a soundtrack reviewer, or an everyday moviegoer, you have to expect yourself to be transported into a macabre world of fantasy where terrible things happen simply because they're funny and unexpected. There has been a significant time since Gilliam's last project, and while The Brothers Grimm showed much promise in its long evolution, the film will be placed like many of his other efforts on the back burner of cult status. Since working with Michael Kamen on Brazil and The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, Gilliam has rarely put forth much attention to the quality of the scores for his films, nor have those films really needed spectacular musical accompaniment. But the big screen interpretation of the fable for The Brothers Grimm proved to be an exception. To describe the plot of this tale would do too much injustice to the film, but in a nutshell, two brothers who scam villagers by posing as 19th Century European ghostbusters are at a loss when they are suddenly thrust into the task of solving a real mystery. Needless to say, plenty of horrible things happen (it makes you wonder what would turn out if Gilliam and Tim Burton collaborated) and a menace lurks in every dark corner of their journey. Originally to be scored with gypsy music provided by Goran Bregovic, The Brothers Grimm eventually became a project too demanding of a large-scale orchestral score, and Italian scoring veteran Dario Marianelli was hired to write his first Hollywood feature score. Listening to Europeans --and especially the Italians-- write these kinds of scores is a refreshing change from the same old Hollywood popcorn scores provided by American composers these days. Elliot Goldenthal would be an exception, but an artist like Marianelli seems better equipped to combine the intelligence and complexity of Goldenthal's writing with the romantic, Mediterranean sensibilities often expected out of Western orchestras. For The Brothers Grimm, Marianelli would certainly not disappoint.

	Learn about supporting Filmtracks

The primary reason the Europeans sound so interesting in their recent ventures into American action cinema is because of their intellectual use of each section of the orchestra, as well as their staggered rhythmic and key structures. Even the thematic ideas sound refreshing more often than not, though if The Brothers Grimm has a weakness, it is Marianelli's borrowing of several thematic inspirations in both the classical and film score worlds. There are pieces of Goldenthal, Ottman, and Goldsmith to be heard in his themes here, and Brahms' "Lullaby" is adapted with a sense of heightened darkness worth a listen. The density of Marianelli's writing isn't as staggering as the sound generated from the score would suggest, but he instead presents such a diverse field of instruments in alternating passages that the overall wash of sound almost seems too dense. Some of this kind of "wall of sound" approach was utilized by Howard Shore in the Lord of the Rings scores, though Marianelli's work here is far more brutal than Shore's. Without a doubt, The Brothers Grimm pounds you relentlessly with marching sequence after marching sequence, fresh rhythm after fresh rhythm, and by the end, the overarching consistent element in the score is its own domineering attitude. The percussion section is largely responsible for this "headache waiting to happen," but the oddity in The Brothers Grimm is that score is so fascinating in its instrumental usage that you keep listening to it despite its assault on your senses. Several satisfyingly harmonic passages are sprinkled throughout the score's beginning and end, sometimes accompanied by either a solo voice or a full choral ensemble. The two finale cues are worth the price of the album alone; not only does Marianelli embrace the prototypical Hollywood fluff ending, but he takes it to the same grandiose level as the rest of the score, providing a resolution of the magnitude that even Don Davis' Matrix Revolutions can't touch. Thus, there's something on the album for listeners who want their share of simple melodies and gorgeous choral statements. Likewise, students of complex orchestral writing will have a field day with the massive middle sections of the score. Only its own relentless weight and emotionally tiring length holds the album from the highest rating.   Amazon.com Price Hunt: CD or Download

Music as Written for Film: *****
Music as Heard on Album: ****
Overall: *****

Bias Check:

For Dario Marianelli reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.67 (in 9 reviews) and the average viewer rating is 3.37 (in 4,528 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.