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Review of The Kite Runner (Alberto Iglesias)
FILMTRACKS RECOMMENDS:
Buy it... if you appreciate Alberto Iglesias' extremely intelligent
merging of worldly genres in his highly textured and authentic
cross-cultural works.
Avoid it... if you prefer your dramatic scores to leave an impression with you via memorable themes rather than instrumental and rhythmic devises.
FILMTRACKS EDITORIAL REVIEW:
The Kite Runner: (Alberto Iglesias) Director Marc
Forster and screenwriter David Benioff have been extremely faithful in
their adaptation of the best-selling Khaled Hosseini novel The Kite
Runner, and their reward has been a significant showing in early
awards consideration. The film has been a great arthouse success,
breaking hearts with its emotionally stark but frightfully realistic
glimpse at the culture of Afghanistan from the times before the Russian
invasion through the rule of the Taliban. Two boyhood friends share a
love of kite flying, but their class differences cause one to betray the
other in such a dramatic fashion that the story closely follows his
life-long path to redemption. A move to America underlines the clash of
societies living in different centuries, but the common thread of the
film is one of an introspective personal journey that has no clear
heroes and villains. The assignment to The Kite Runner seems like
a perfect fit for Spanish composer Alberto Iglesias, who is not only
adept at composing in dramatic cross-cultural fashion, but is also an
international favorite with arthouse audiences. His collaboration with
director Pedro Almodóvar was his introduction to most of those
listeners, with several Goya Awards and nominations for Golden Globes
and Academy Awards resulting in this decade. His knack for combining the
styles of multiple cultural genres of music into one package has become
his specialty, ranging in success from the cross between classical
chamber music and Latin flavor in Talk to Her to the less
tangible merging of a Western orchestra and the highly textured, worldly
instruments of East Africa in The Constant Gardener. The most
common result of his endeavors is an authenticity for each location he
writes for despite incorporating seemingly incongruous elements from
unrelated genres. Iglesias continues the same techniques in The Kite
Runner, augmenting the standard studio orchestra in Los Angeles with
a variety of specialty instruments and vocals that take small pieces of
Western symphonic sensibilities and infuse them with a surprisingly
effective balance between traditional Middle Eastern tones and a
smoother, more rhythmic Latin foundation.
While Iglesias does make an effort to provide thematic representation for the characters and the film as a whole, The Kite Runner isn't going to leave any lasting motif in your mind. A title theme of sorts is exhibited in its boldest form on strings in the middle of "Opening Titles," and the betrayed boy receives a solitary thematic performance in "Hassan Theme." But these themes are extremely subtle and complex in their progressions, typically forcing them to meander in relative obscurity amongst Iglesias' far more compelling rhythmic movements. The score alternates between somewhat cerebral explorations of tones from the specialty instruments and the wildly frenetic and occasionally quite positive rhythmic explosions. The highlight of the score is easily "Kite Tournament," a cue that stutters and stops between extremely attractive rhythms performed by strings and percussion, with clarinet interludes underscoring the sensitivity of the event. It's not hard to imagine that this cue alone propelled this score into awards contention. Other cues maximize the use of rhythmic devices, from the pleasant tones of an acoustic guitar to the horrific piano pounding in "Escape," but the remainder of The Kite Runner is an intelligent presentation of specialty performances that preserve the score's identity through their mere presence. Vocal performances true to the region are stellar in both "The Call, Kabul 1978," and especially "End Phone Call." Only Mychael Danna has approached the same level of authenticity in instrumental use; the oud, duduk, and ney are all familiar elements to the region, joining a half dozen other specialty instruments that impress due to the care with which they provide their contributions. A masterful mix of the score emphasizes these elements extremely well. The latter half of the album release contains some of the less interesting cues, with the tension of "Fuel Tanker" and "The Stadium" resorting to primordial appeals through less complicated dissonance. The album features five source songs, two of which suffering from archival sound given their 1975 recordings, though the modern "Omaid e Man" vocal performance fits beautifully with the style of Iglesias' score. Overall, among the composer's better known works, The Kite Runner isn't as consistent as Talk to Her, but has far more highlights than the much-hyped The Constant Gardener. It's fascinating throughout, but only a few sequences beckon for repeated enjoyment. ***
TRACK LISTINGS:
Total Time: 62:36
NOTES & QUOTES:
The insert includes a short note from the director about the score.
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