Filmtracks Recommends:
Buy it... if you are a clearly established enthusiast of Alexandre Desplat romance scores that rely upon intelligent lines of dancing movement rather than easier, broad strokes of deeper tonality. Avoid it... if you consider Desplat's prancing, waltz-inspired rhythms of the treble region to be obnoxiously dainty, prompting you to swat at imaginary insects buzzing around you in the room. Filmtracks Editorial Review:
Cheri: (Alexandre Desplat) After a 1990's saturation of the market involving films dealing with societal mores and loves affairs in Europe of a hundred years ago, the industry rarely revisits this costume and art director's realm of mastery. One exception is the 2009 European film Cheri, a throwback to Merchant-Ivory productions and Jane Austen adaptations, courtesy of veteran genre screenwriter Christopher Hampton and director Stephen Frears. The story of Cheri is one that predictably follows the love affair between one of Paris' most powerful courtesans and the much younger son of another. Their casual encounters turn into several years of a deeper relationship that is eventually threatened upon the younger man's arranged marriage to a woman more appropriate for him. A restraint of emphasis on the moral implications of the affair and a handful of laughs keep the picture light-hearted, though there is no escaping the inevitable circumstances of love lost by the tale's end. Critical response has been overwhelmingly positive for Michelle Pfeiffer and Kathy Bates as the two aging courtesans, but little praise has been saved for the younger cast members, leaving Cheri with respectable, but not overwhelmingly positive reviews. Extending his services in a genre not unfamiliar to his career is composer Alexandre Desplat, whose international recognition has been slowly but steadily gaining steam over the course of the decade. Any period romance film could suffice with a basic score of pretty, harmonic tones; undoubtedly, a straight forward approach to something like Cheri from composers similar to John Barry or Rachel Portman would have served the film well enough. With Desplat, however, comes a sense of complication that is all his own, a need to intelligently fill the aural environment of a film with more lines of musical thought than necessary. This approach is a significant attraction for some listeners, though its tendency to shun straight forward harmonic expressions of majesty either repulses or generates indifference from others. In these regards, Cheri is a score that true collectors of Desplat's work will appreciate greatly while others will likely find it merely average. The fact that this division in appeal has come to define much of Desplat's career is an interesting debate for another time. For veteran film music listeners still waiting for a replacement for the undeniably romantic inclinations of Georges Delerue, Philippe Rombi remains perhaps a better candidate than Desplat, if only for the exact reason detailed above. Desplat has the capability, as he does in Cheri, to perfectly capture the spirit and character of a love affair. But his path to achieving that functionality takes him in directions that don't offer streamlined, expansive expressions of passion or melancholy. He often allows several incongruent lines of musical action to coincide, not always forming satisfying counterpoint but allowing the dominant lines to carry enough of a cue's personality to address the proper overarching emotion. These periods of frenetic, almost prickly enticement in Cheri are easily its highlights, using piano, strings, high singular woodwinds, a variety of tingling percussion, and even electric organ to move with alacrity through figures that dance off the pages of Desplat's written notes (the absence of a harpsichord at the forefront is a relief). The sense of whimsy in this treble-dominated score floats effortlessly despite all of this action in its major thematic parts. Conversely, however, the score does falter in the second half of its presentation on album, during which time Desplat's far more restrained and surprisingly sparse material is heard. The score becomes strained in this half of the product, ending in the concluding track on an extremely discomforting, single extended whine at the highest reaches of the violins. The score's more interesting cues, and those that will perhaps appeal to a greater audience, will be those in which Desplat involves both brass and a deeper bass region, including "Return Home" and "To Biarritz." Both of these cues close with fluid expressions of harmony, especially the latter one (which also contains an odd semblance to Elliot Goldenthal's noir thematic adaptations in Batman Forever). Overall, Cheri is the kind of work that will enthrall collectors of Desplat's airy but precise rhythmic meanderings. The advertised participation of the London Symphony Orchestra perhaps ensures that an adequate rendering of these difficult lines of movement will be well performed, but don't assume that the ensemble usage guarantees any sense of resounding depth. The album may have been a more consistently engaging listening experience at 30 minutes rather than 45, and a curious 15-second insertion of silence in the middle of "The Wedding" is disconcerting. Still, it's an effective score and an attractive album for a specific group of listeners. *** Track Listings:
Total Time: 46:21
All artwork and sound clips from Cheri are Copyright © 2009, Varèse Sarabande. The reviews and notes contained on the filmtracks.com site may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of Filmtracks Publications. Audio clips can be heard using RealPlayer but cannot be redistributed without the label's expressed written consent. Page created 7/5/09, updated 7/5/09. Review Version 4.1 - PHP (Filmtracks Publications). Copyright © 2009-2013, Christian Clemmensen. All rights reserved. |
