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Gaku (Peak: The Rescuers): (Naoki Sato) The
Japanese manga "Gaku: Minna no Yama" has been a popular seller in its
home country over the late 2000's, and a 2011 cinematic adaptation
collected many of the basic storylines of those comics into one
mountaineering character drama. The concept deals with the adventures
and interpersonal melodrama involved with volunteer rescuers based in
the Japanese Alps, the story focusing on veteran mountain climber Sanpo
Shimazaki and his efforts to save lives while training a young rescuer,
Kumi Shiina, who wishes to follow in her father's footsteps in the
occupation. Among the lessons of
Gaku (known internationally as
Peak: The Rescuers) is the inevitable loss ratio that a rescuer
must contend with, for less experienced climbers are destined to die on
the mountains regardless of any attempt to save them. The movie
reinforces that mother nature is in control, ultimately overshadowing
extended scenes of dramatic character interaction with high stakes peril
on missions that lead to death and dismemberment (the latter the source
of some controversy by establishing a
127 Hours-like amputation
scenario). The movie performed reasonably well in Japan early in the
summer season, also making an appearance in the film festival circuit in
Australia. With its incredible vistas and intensely personal story
elements, the soundtrack for
Peak: The Rescuers was a solid fit
for Japanese composer Naoki Sato. The rising star in his home nation is
familiar with both character dramas (which led to his winning of a
Japanese Academy Award in the mid-2000's) and the immensity of snowy
slopes (having tackled the more light-hearted skiing drama
Silver
Season a few years later), and you not unexpectedly hear mannerisms
for those prior works melded for the large-scale orchestral and
electronic music in
Peak: The Rescuers. There is nothing about
this soundtrack that really required Sato to explore new stylistic
territory. The composer has always been very proficient in the merging
of organic and synthetic tones, often layering vocal effects and
interesting soloists into his thematic expressions. His accessibly tonal
presentation of melodies is often simplistic in construct, but he
maintains interest through the use of stunning resonance and crisply
applied counterpoint. When in "string drama" mode, he can lull even the
most irritable infant to sleep, and when running wild with contemporary
rhythmic loops, he manages to avoid, with a few exceptions, comparisons
to the popular American action methods of Hans Zimmer and his
associates.
Widespread international focus was placed on Sato's
career after his rousingly powerful adaptation score for
Space
Battleship Yamato in 2010, and listeners hoping for more of the same
lyrical beauty will appreciate
Peak: The Rescuers far more than
the composer's other significant cinematic score of 2011,
Dog x
Police: The K-9 Force. That said,
Peak: The Rescuers is truly
the companion score for 2008's
Silver Season, featuring much of
the same respect for the outdoors on a large scale but with the
contemporary loops dialed back. As in that previous entry, Sato is
forced to navigate an extremely wide range of emotions in
Peak: The
Rescuers, yielding a combination of driving, percussive sequences
and heartbreaking melodic grandeur that evenly splits the running time
of the recording. The former sequences are fresh enough in tone to be
engaging, exercising the best balance of looped thumping and orchestral
accompaniment in the score. The most famous cue from the work,
"Crevasse," introduces this material in full suspense mode, though more
interesting variations on this mode exist late in "Tenbyouiwa" and
throughout "Tajuu Sounan," in which the bass pulsing strays towards
early 1990's Basil Poledouris style. Deeper organic percussion in "Air
Rescue" and the slapping, chopping movements of "Bakudan" (extending out
of ideas teased at the end of "Yumi") are reminiscent of John Powell's
standard chase material. The broad exclamations of tragedy from brass at
the ends of "Bakudan" and "Yumi" sprinkle some Michael Kamen bravado
with Sato's own darker portions of
Space Battleship Yamato. Few
listeners, however, are going to be interested in the score for
Peak:
The Rescuers because of its adequate but ultimately conventional
suspense and action music. Instead, Sato's knack for unrestrained beauty
is once again the highlight, occupying the work's other half. For the
vista shots, moments of triumph over adversity, and soothing
conversational scenes, the composer unleashes the same grandiose and
lovely melodic grace that has defined all of his best career efforts to
date. His instrumental palette is familiar in these sequences (broad
strings accompanied by brass in counterpoint) except for one incredible
deviation. For whatever reason, Sato decided to employ a penny/tin
whistle in a select handful of his major thematic statements, and the
instrument is performed and mixed with a level of excellence that alone
elevates this score's appeal. It's hard to say what Irish element exists
in
Peak: The Rescuers, but you hear the instrument applied so
rarely like this in film music that you have to excuse whatever fallacy
of logic may accompany its usage.
Aside from the rather unmemorable motifs utilized in
his action cues, Sato tackles
Peak: The Rescuers with two
recurring themes, the first one divided into its primary and interlude
sequences. It's not unusual for Sato to state the interludes for his
themes as seemingly distinct, self-contained ideas, and once again, the
middle portion of his primary theme here is the part that qualifies
without reservation in the "haunting" department. The full theme is
expressed best in "Gaku" and "Kyuushutsu," the latter nearly identical
but adding some nice acoustic guitar accompaniment at the start. The
stately string idea yields to its interlude at the 1:12 mark in these
cues, both of them exhibiting the whistle in both primary melodic duty
and as choice counterpoint. The final 40 seconds of these cues add some
Silver Season-like percussion and choir to the primary phrase of
the theme and conclude with Sato's usual chime-banging and
cymbal-crashing, but this time with the whistle elegantly resolving on
top. Equally pretty is Sato's use of this theme for the main character,
the "Sanpo" cue again dominated by a short but heartbreaking statement
of the interlude on whistle and choir. Casual listeners will recall the
interlude best from its two massively inspirational passages in
"Crevasse," the latter one producing 45 seconds of music for all the
players, including whistle, that rivals the best that Sato has ever
recorded. The main theme and its interlude are reprised in several
places elsewhere in the score, the latter intriguingly translated with
stately chamber attitude in "Kita Alps De." Somber but pretty reprises
of the former exist in "Inochi" and "Nadare," the second cue dissolving
into interesting percussive riffs. The other theme in
Peak: The
Rescuers is standard to Sato's career and wafts through "Otokomeshi"
and "Kumi He" with ease. The pair of "Hyoubaku" and "Ikiro" near the end
of the album release of the score contain some singularly grim but
impressive choral and string moments of melodramatic gravity. Overall,
the suspense and action parts of Sato's score aren't spectacular, but
they are always accessibly functional. The outwardly melodic portions,
however, are golden and represent some of the best single moments of
2011 in film music. A 51- minute score-only album from Warner's Japanese
branch will blow you away with its highlights, though expect to spend
$40 to import its original pressing to America. No Sato score of this
magnitude can conclude without another nod to the awesome mix often
afforded to his music; few scores sound as good as his, a perfect amount
of reverb and balance of soloists here reflecting the incredible
ambience of
Space Battleship Yamato. What Sato writes for these
major assignments may not be brilliant in terms of compositional
complexity, but the execution of his ideas is a constant joy.
**** Amazon.com Price Hunt: CD or Download
The insert includes notes about both the film and the composer,
all of which in Japanese.
