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Review of The Life Before Her Eyes (James Horner)
FILMTRACKS RECOMMENDS:
Buy it... if you can accept a grim and gloomy atmospheric score
with little of the haunting beauty that typically floats overwhelmingly
depressing experiences on film.
Avoid it... if less than ten minutes of a truly focused combination of piano, synthetic voice, and electronics near the end of the album cannot forgive the mass of meandering and aimless suffering preceding it.
FILMTRACKS EDITORIAL REVIEW:
The Life Before Her Eyes: (James Horner) If you're
looking for a downer, then look no further. No glorious footage of the
gorgeous Connecticut countryside can soften the impact of The Life
Before Her Eyes, a time-shifting examination of a life that flashes
before your eyes, quite literally. The adaptation of Laura Kasischke's
novel of the same name was originally titled "In Bloom" upon its debut
on the eighth day of the 2007 Toronto International Film Festival,
though its wider (but still limited) release more than half a year later
reverts to the book's title. To describe the plot of the film without
revealing its conclusive twist is difficult, though both the title and
soundtrack track listings plainly give that twist away. Essentially,
The Life Before Her Eyes jumps haphazardly between three eras in
a timeline, blurring them in such as fashion as to suggest parallel
universes. The primary character of Diana is alternately seen forming a
bond with her best friend in high school, facing a crazed student in the
middle of shooting up his school (who gives the two trapped girls the
choice of which one he should kill), and dealing with the tragic event
fifteen years later. None of the three times is particularly sunny,
especially as the adult Diana sees her life slipping away due to her own
inability to deal with the trauma. Grim, gloomy, and almost grotesque in
its ominously confusing narrative shifts, The Life Before Her
Eyes has been described as a story much better left on paper, where
the cerebral explorations are more coherent. Director Vadim Perelman
made a splash with his debut for The House of Sand and Fog in
2003, and this, his second feature, also contains a contemplative score
by veteran James Horner. As the composer has ventured further into the
arthouse scene in the 2000's, his work has become more unpredictable.
There is little in the music of The Life Before Her Eyes that
will remind most mainstream listeners of the composer's famous works,
but as any collector tired of hearing "Hornerisms" will admit, some
originality is never to be frowned upon.
In the early years of Horner's career, synthetic works were somewhat common. As his orchestral scores soared in popularity, he left behind the sparse, electronic sound of such 1980's music. His return to the concept of synthetic, small budget minimalism is an intriguing move in his career, though not spectacular by any means. His score for The Life Before Her Eyes technically fills the void of 2007 that, with the delay of the wide release of the film, left the composer without an official work in that calendar year. It's a score that won't gain much attention and will likely serve as a curiosity for the composer's collectors (at best). The ensemble for the score includes piano and synthesizer, with solo guitar and string effects that may or may not be synthetic as well. Only the piano conveys itself as truly genuine in an organic sense. There are really no "Hornerisms" to speak of in The Life Before Her Eyes, with even the harsh and occasionally grinding electronic bass tones unique to this effort. An ethereal synthetic female voice, the clear identity of Diana's soul, is a faint throwback to the lofty effects of Titanic and Deep Impact, among others. The tone and depth of Horner's synthetic array has matured considerably since the days of The Name of the Rose and Unlawful Entry, though this score emulates those two obscurities in Horner's career in the general understatement of its style. Make no mistake about it; The Life Before Her Eyes is a bleak score, with only hints at a hopeful resolution in the final two tracks featured on the album. Both the highlights and the tragedy are scored with a wishy-washy atmosphere of meandering electronic keyboarding and aimless dissonance. The first ten tracks presented on album are so numbing and melancholy in a dismal and cold atmosphere that you can't help but search forward for a brighter moment. While that redemption in "Two Worlds; The Past and the Future" and "Young Diana's Future - A Future That Could Have Been" comes in the form of more coherent harmony, don't expect the score to become any more attractive than the descriptor of "morbidly haunting." Thematically, Horner is extremely deliberate in his presentation of the primary idea for The Life Before Her Eyes. Performed exclusively on piano, this theme very slowly develops throughout the score, and an excruciatingly restrained tempo masks many of its renderings. By the final track, Horner's own solo performances help define the theme at a more transparent pace, though it may very well have already put you to sleep by then. A secondary motif is conveyed in the style of the synthetic female vocals. In only fragments in most of the score, this representation of spirit in the final two cues exists in minor-key harmony that has similarities to a few of Danny Elfman's early afterlife ideas for Beetlejuice. A solemn piano line wanders through these performances and, in the final moments of "Two Worlds; The Past and the Future," even emulates the starkly grim tones of John Carpenter's famed Halloween theme. One of the more striking auxiliary elements in The Life Before Her Eyes is the use of a harsh and metallic bass effect, a distant cousin of Jerry Goldsmith's "blaster beam," perhaps. Its employment (along with a cymbal) is always a grounding element of the cue's key. These elements (the piano, synth voice, and harsh bass effect) are pivotal to the success of the final two cues because they are focused into a coherent series of thematic performances or, at least, harmonic progressions. They aren't any more pleasant in tone, however, concluding the score with the same frightful disillusionment with which it began. The three minutes of "Two Worlds; The Past and the Future" and the middle five minutes of "Young Diana's Future - A Future That Could Have Been" are worth exploring for their hints at forming a heart, but there's really no reason to try to accept these renderings when the same general idea of cerebral atmosphere was given a soaring spirit by Horner in A New World. Casual listeners will refer to The Life Before Her Eyes as monumentally dull, while the composer's most ardent fans may attempt to place the label of "profound" on it. If the entire score had featured the focus of the final two cues, then perhaps the latter would apply. But as it stands overall, the score is gloomy without being beautiful, and that's a dangerous recipe for boredom. **
TRACK LISTINGS:
Total Time: 53:38
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 Life Before Her Eyes are Copyright © 2008, Lakeshore Records and cannot be redistributed without the label's expressed written consent. Page created 4/13/08 (and not updated significantly since). |
