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Review of The Beach (Angelo Badalamenti)

FILMTRACKS RECOMMENDS:

Buy it... if the film's absolutely stunning title theme for whimsical orchestra and choir, occupying just a third of the score's length, is worth wading through the extremely challenging techno-brutal majority to find.

Avoid it... if you're not familiar with the schizophrenic personality of this soundtrack, because the highly collectible score-only album is a very mixed bag of stylistic discord.

FILMTRACKS EDITORIAL REVIEW:

The Beach: (Angelo Badalamenti) From a studio point of view, you know that your motion picture is especially troubled when the production problems don't end when the film is released. Such is the case with 20th Century Fox and Danny Boyle's The Beach, which ran into a multitude of issues relating to creative differences and an abysmal adaptation (an outright butchering) of Alex Garland's 1996 book. But that proved minor compared to the confrontation Fox eventually had with the government of Thailand (going all the way up to its Supreme Court) in regards to the studio's careless flattening of a pristine beach in the country to better suit the desired look of the film. While the titular location of the filming was eventually ruled to be an environmental disaster that Fox was responsible for restoring, the 2004 tsunami in the region ironically ended up saving the studio some of that labor. Money was never the issue; The Beach made a profit of nearly $100 million due to the explosive star power of lead actor Leonardo DiCaprio in his first post-Titanic role. Audiences flocked to the 2000 picture despite dreadful reviews brought about by terrible alterations to the book's plot that made the movie nearly incomprehensible in its second half. A trio of tourists is on vacation in Thailand when a Scotsman about to commit suicide reveals a map that will take them to the most perfect, idyllic beach in the world. They make the trek to the location, but discover a band of naturalists made up of former tourists and, more immediately troubling, a production facility for well-armed marijuana smugglers. Between the criminals, the naturalists (who have bizarre religious rituals, no less), sharks, love triangles, and other tourists inadvertently making the trip to the island, conflict is bound to happen. By the end of the film, an over-sexed DiCaprio character loses his mind and runs through a forest fighting hallucinations that seemingly place him in a video game. Indeed, The Beach and its "parallel universe" are that bad.

Given that this film was a reuniting of Trainspotting's director (Boyle), producer (Andrew Macdonald), and screenwriter (John Hodge), it should have come as no surprise that a musical identity consisting of bad-ass techno/electronica and hard rock songs was destined to define it. The collection of such songs yielded an extremely successful song compilation CD at the time of the film's release. What only sharp cinematic enthusiasts who happened to appreciate The Beach (the few in existence) realized was the intrigue regarding Angelo Badalamenti's score for the film as well. Best known for his associations with director David Lynch, Badalamenti is one of those composers capable of surprising you with each and every new score. He can break your heart with flowing orchestral romanticism in Cousins and The Comfort of Strangers but also repel you with electronic dissonance so awful that scores like Arlington Road will make you nauseous. He can also straddle the eerie line in between lyricism and ambient dissolution with ease as well, a style that defines Blue Velvet. Compilations of his work are fascinating to behold, if only because of the man's incredible range of capabilities. For The Beach, Badalamenti ended up working with Orbital's Barry Adamson to fuse an orchestral presence with heavy techno elements of a level of brutality not much different from Orbital's influence on Michael Kamen's Event Horizon. There is a striking range of moods in the resulting score, though even in the most beautiful portions by Badalamenti, unease lurks in a slightly dissonant haze. The terrifying half of this score is truly unlistenable. Much of it is backed by aggressive strings and brass contributions, but the synthetic pounding over obnoxiously harsh loops is too daunting for even this foreign of an environment. With the channel-bouncing applications of sound effects, some of which mimicking the sounds of handheld power tools and screeching tires quite well, the boundaries separating music and effects are regularly crossed. Between "Bizarre City" and "Dreamburst," among others, The Beach will test your limits of tolerance.

The more subdued variations of the darker half of this score in "Daffy's Done" and "Grassmark" maintain a very disturbing and vague ambience of keyboarded fog. The action sequences unfortunately obscure some very forceful orchestral recordings with the synthetic slapping and thumping; it would be fascinating to hear these orchestral sessions prior to the irritating overlays. While those crossing over from the song compilation album will probably be interested in the electronica, however, film score collectors will clearly gravitate towards the almost mysterious title theme, performed in grand harmony by full orchestral ensemble and children's choir. This theme is enunciated in full several times throughout the score, starting with "Swim to Island," and informs the more subtle, longingly romantic variations in "Mournful Myth," "Starnight," and "Blue Sex" (hey, no Avatar jokes). Its enticingly simple structure stays with you long after the album or film has finished, likely the main cause of the score's legendary status in the collector's market. Utilizing acoustic guitar, harp, and easy-going keyboarding and fantastic metallic percussion, these cues really do represent what you'd hope to hear upon visiting a perfect beach. The deceiving choral innocence in these cues exists somewhere between James Horner's application of voices in Titanic and the whimsical side of John Barry's vintage fantasy tendencies. You could assemble fifteen minutes of truly magical, digestible majesty and light romance music from Badalamenti's score, but the immense beauty to result may not warrant the price of the collectible score-only CD for The Beach that disappeared from stores not long after its street date. It was offered by London Records several months after the song compilation (to coincide with the home video release of the movie), and its tracks are in an incomprehensible order that ruins the listening experience. Sound quality is absolutely crystal clear, a great benefit to the orchestral portions of cues like "Grassmark" (notice the muscular brass in the background of this otherwise forgettable cue) but also a nuisance when those wacky sound effects start buzzing in your ears during the score's relentless techno rhythms. Overall, Badalamenti hits a home run during the highlights, but the rest of the score is a mind-bogglingly and depressingly difficult challenge.  ***

TRACK LISTINGS:

Total Time: 44:01

• 1. Bizarre City (4:07) • 2. The Beach Theme (Swim to Island) (3:24) • 3. Vision of Fantasy (4:03) • 4. Mournful Myth (2:11) • 5. Starnight (1:45) • 6. Killing Fields (5:41) • 7. Blue Sex (2:38) • 8. The Beach Theme (Mythical Waters) (1:59) • 9. Grassmark (2:45) • 10. Daffy's Done (2:15) • 11. Mystery of Christo (1:53) • 12. Pure Victims (2:44) • 13. Pursuit of a Shark (1:54) • 14. Waterfall Cascade (3:56) • 15. Dreamburst (2:46)

NOTES & QUOTES:

The insert includes no extra information about the score or film.

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The reviews and other textual content contained on the filmtracks.com site may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of Christian Clemmensen at Filmtracks Publications. All artwork and sound clips from The Beach are Copyright © 2000, Sire/London Records and cannot be redistributed without the label's expressed written consent. Page created 10/21/10 (and not updated significantly since).