Rebirth

I want to resurrect this blog.

I want to do it by running a section about something that interests me. I want to do a list of soundtracks that were better than the actual thing they were supporting. This may have been done as a triumph of artistic purpose or savvy marketing. I will spotlight a work every time I add to the list. This idea came to me while researching an artist I was fond of (Ryuichi Sakamoto) but never heard a large body of his work which involved several soundtrack works for films of varying quality (both the movies and his soundtrack works).

What I found was that Ryuichi Sakamoto with the help of David Byrne created the soundtrack to 1987's The Last Emperor and it was highly rated. The movie on the other hand, which I have seen years ago, kind a leaves people a bit cold as the events of the protagonist's life are recounted in a way that seems like a high school book report, no depth to the way he feels or the motivations which define him as a character. The visuals of the film are quite pretty. The cast make do with what little they are given. I believe the director Bernando Bertolucci wanted to show a person who had his life planned for him and everything that he could ever want for no effort and then see that all slip away because he never learned how to take any initiative or learn what he wanted. The main character is a spoilt brat who moves around aimlessly in a privileged life not learning anything special until too late then he moves off to somewhere else to meander around until the other characters get tired of meandering. Then he meanders back to China in an ill-fated attempt to grab power being aided by some Japanese who are simply portrayed as power hungry genocidaires. Then he meanders in prison meeting someone who teaches him to be a normal citizen and then he meanders to his death. There is little to no humour to any of the proceedings. The problem is the execution; it simply isn't an engaging watch over 163 minutes. It takes too long to go anywhere and when it has got somewhere we don't learn anything or care about who it's happening to. It makes an okay history lesson but it doesn't make an engaging film. I can recall things happening but I cannot recall what the driving force of them happening was past simply saying 'history' or 'war'. The only moral I take from the story is that today's revolutionaries become tomorrow's oppressors, which is not a startlingly new premise for a film.

The soundtrack is a wonderful blend of film music orchestration and Chinese music. The main theme motif is catchy and memorable. The pieces have longing autumnal quality that the movie never elaborated. Sakamoto and Byrne find a good mix of presentations that allow the music to breathe. The tracks are concise and carry to required gravitas that would be required for telling a very serious story. It is as if all the emotional content was meant to be displayed by the music rather than the actors. This could be a novel way of visual story-telling yet the script happens in an unnatural rhythm with too much excess baggage that doesn't take a concise route. It takes a circuitous route that gets bogged down in trying to recount too much. The music does no suffer from trying to say too much, it works as background ambient music and rewards close listening.

I highly recommend the soundtrack. Only see the movie if you're doing a report for school on China.