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Filmtracks Recommends:
Buy it... if you appreciate strong collaborations between African rhythms, Western instrumentation, and ethnically charged vocals. Avoid it... if the sudden excess of strong, stylistically-African scores in 2003 has already saturated your tolerance for that genre. Filmtracks Editorial Review:
Final Solution: (John Sponsler and Tom Gire) With high praise from both within the international Christian community and from mainstream critics, the apartheid film Final Solution is a tale of personal transformation, redemption, and confrontation of past crimes. Its premise revolves around the character journey of a young, white South African whose childhood circumstances led him to adopt the idea of genocide as a solution for South Africa and its "black danger." After training paramilitary white groups to strike at blacks, the man is slowly shown and cured of his prejudices by his love interest, as well as a pastor. The film presents a mob scene confrontation that allows the story of this man to unfold, and offers the ultimate opportunity for salvation. Produced for showings in film festivals, on PBS, and in churches, Final Solution is a film created by a partnership of Christian filming and distribution companies. Despite the mainstream theatrical limitations that typically arise for films distributed by religious organizations, the high quality of Final Solution is extending the film beyond that nucleus. One such example is the soundtrack release for the picture. Composed by John Sponsler and Tom Gire, the score for the film was recorded in South Africa with a moderate orchestral group, a local chorale, and several instrumental and vocal soloists. Some John Debney fans may already own a snippet of John Sponsler's work, as Sponsler worked with Debney to provide music for the television show "Doctor Who" in 1996. Since then, Sponsler has continued to provide music for television and video films, and Tom Gire has often composed additional material for Sponsler's assignments of the past few years. Final Solution is their most emotionally charged challenge to date, with a recording process that the composers recount as among their very best experiences. The score follows an interesting trend in film music in 2003, a year which has been rich in African integration into the traditional, Western orchestra. With differences already evident between Hans Zimmer's Tears of the Sun and Niki Reiser's Nowhere in Africa, yet another stylistic approach to the same recipe is taken by Sponsler and Gire for Final Solution. Avoiding stereotypes and synthetic meddling, the Final Solution score is much more similar to Nowhere in Africa, but with a smaller orchestral presence and a less pronounced thematic performance by those orchestral players. The success of Sponsler and Gire's work stems from the masterful use of the traditional vocalists who often overlap in their solo and chorale mass performances. The use of a female lead vocalist, with a deep male choir and rich percussion in the background, is hauntingly combined with string and woodwind sections to produce a sound that very well balances the need to identify with Western audiences while also adequately representing the black cultures. While several cues feature only the percussion and solo vocalists to represent the actions and emotions of the blacks in the story, it is most likely that Western ears will be attracted to the several cues that feature the orchestral and full choral passages. Ironically, there are a handful of cues that offer electronic keyboarding of a Hans Zimmer similarity which range from the uplifting --with a redemption cue very reminiscent of Zimmer's The Preacher's Wife-- to those which buttress the African rhythms, as was done in Tears of the Sun. In the end, however, the Final Solution recording remains considerably more rooted in tradition and authenticity than Tears of the Sun, and it is this character which likely assists the film in its immense popularity. Overall, if you appreciate strong collaborations between African rhythms, Western instrumentation, and ethnically charged vocals, then the Final Solution album is well worth your investment. Those who purchased and enjoyed Nowhere in Africa will especially appreciate this score as an extension of that style. ****
The insert includes a note from the composers and a full list of players. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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