Filmtracks Traffic Rank: #893
Written 8/26/04, Revised 10/17/11
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Buy it... only if you are interested in the archival collection of
hymns, chain gang songs, and blues music that serves as the source
material for the film.
Avoid it... if you are expecting anything even remotely interesting
from Graeme Revell's extremely simplistic and drab electronic
contribution to the film and album.
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| Revell |
Open Water: (Graeme Revell) Chalk up yet another
movie in the "Who the hell would want to pay to see this?" category.
With its gruesome plotline widely publicized during its initial release,
it's safe to say that Open Water is based upon the true story of
Queensland's Great Barrier Reef Tragedy. Vacationers Tom and Eileen
Lonergan went on a diving expedition with 26 others on a charter vessel
owned by Outer Edge Dive Company from Australia in January, 1998. While
the Lonergans were still scuba diving, the other 24 participants had
quickly completed their dives and re-boarded the vessel. The captain of
the boat, Jack Nairn, neglected to do a head count and just assumed that
everyone had boarded (there are reports that he was in a hurry to get
back to a party at the port). With the Lonergans innocently stranded at
sea and with no discovery of their absence made for two days, they were
left to die gruesomely in shark-infested waters. Nobody should be fooled
about the outcome of the events in this film, but the intentionally
low-budget production of the picture, including the use of a home video
digital camera to shoot the film, managed to create the variety of
The Blair Witch Project hype that billed the project as an
independent entry to watch in the late summer of 2004. Critical response
to the film was somewhat positive, with the play upon phobias seeming to
work on hardened critics. Responses from audiences, however, was much
more varied, with complaints about the film's obvious and terrible
outcome coming from viewers who felt in need of a nice walk in the park
after seeing such a downer. Others have stated that the 87-minute film
is an unqualified bore, and perhaps some margin of blame for such
criticism rests on the shoulders of composer Graeme Revell. While the
veteran had already written a few ambient soundscapes in his prior
assignments, nothing could prepare his collectors for just how minimal
Open Water turned out to be, especially when coming on the heels
of something as dynamic as The Chronicles of Riddick. It's the
type of job for a composer of Revell's stature that arguably diminishes
his reputation, because so little effort seems to have gone into his
approach for the music. If you could choose the most boring and basic
samples existing in the man's library at the time, all of the worst of
them were applied to this score.
Undoubtedly, Revell's music for
Open Water is
about as simplistically structured as any he has ever written, blending
the lines between music and ambient sound design during its entire
length. Composed and programmed for a performance by just one artist at
the synthesizer,
Open Water has very little noteworthy material
of which to speak. The most interesting aspect of the score is that
Revell made no attempt to develop an emotional arc in the narrative to
hide the outcome of the expedition. The music drones without character
before dive just as much as it does as the primary characters are torn
apart. There was definitely no inspiration from music like George
Fenton's
Deep Blue in the scenes before everything goes wrong,
allowing absolutely no element of surprise for those unfamiliar with the
plot and reducing the dichotomy between the first and second halves of
the film. Only a couple of subtle deviations from the music's monotone
electronic droning can be discussed. First, Revell uses the chopping of
a helicopter blade to represent the arrival of the sharks. As they close
in for the kill in "Sharks Circle," Revell presents a slow banging of a
drum to signify death. Otherwise, the only break from the constant, dull
brooding is the short blast of drums heard as the discovery of the
couple's absence is finally realized. Revell's score on album is less
than twelve minutes in length, and his material is supplemented by one
useless cue by Yoav Goren and Jeff Fayman, the totally non-descript
"Dive Boat Leaves the Site," as well as a collection of hymns, chain
gang songs, and blues music that serves as source material for the
region. The use of the latter collection of music in the film
accentuates the fact that these two city-dwellers stranded in the ocean
couldn't be further from home and are not surprisingly more effective
than the score. On album, the songs' varying tones of spirit, including
a significant amount of archival sound, differs extremely from the drab
style of Revell's portions. The Indonesian girls' choir in "Yendisare
Aimando" is perhaps too celebratory compared to what follows, but its
beauty easily represents the highlight of the album. The product is a
rare case in where the source songs are superior to the score in every
instance, and Revell's music is so bland that these songs are the only
reason to purchase the
Open Water soundtrack. The lack of
imagination in Revell's work here far outweighs any effectiveness that
he was hoping to achieve through his intentionally droning and singular
approach. Skip the film and album and go straight to the nice walk in
the park.
* @Amazon.com: CD or
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Bias Check:
For Graeme Revell reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 2.74
(in 19 reviews) and the average viewer rating is 2.78
(in 17,141 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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