David Jobling
Lucky Miles Motion Picture Soundtrack : Review
July 4th 2008 02:11
Motion picture soundtracks don’t always make for interesting listening. Sometimes there’s no tangible lasting connection or resonance between what you hear on the CD and and what you felt from the themes or the emotional journey of the film.
Some soundtracks are no more than a compilation of popular songs that ultimately do better commercial business than the film on the strength of the music alone, while some are scores written to illustrate the film and inform the emotional journey; this for example is music by George Dreyfus written for the 1983 Australian film ‘Waterfront’.
When a film maker manages to combine original score and popular song a happy balance can arise, and that’s what the music from the Lucky Miles motion picture soundtrack sounds like. There’s this dramatic percussion of Trilok Gurtu kicking off the CD and setting the intense and arresting circumstance of the film, followed by a series of more relaxed tracks that allow the evaporation of boundaries both musically and on the emotional level... which also reflects the film’s journey.
There’s nice contrast between the familiar such as Lily Connors which almost seems alien as compared to the alienToto La Momposina, which seems completely familiar (and yet we know it is alien – from another culture).
The music from the motion picture is selected by the films director Michael James Rowland and the Artistic Director of Womad, Thomas Boorman so there’s little wonder the quality of the music is so high; from snippets of Puccini’s Madame Butterfly sung by Jay Hunter Morris with the Australian Opera and the Ballet Orchestra at the Sydney Opera House through to breezy steel guitar and the laied back Remmy Ongala or the unmistakably Aussie Coloured Stone.
The soundtrack has many of the elements of the film simply by reflecting so many styles of expression from a world music platform, and the score material from Trilok Gurtu resonates.
This South Australian film Lucky Miles has much to offer, not least the very welcome release of the music from the motion picture film.
Some soundtracks are no more than a compilation of popular songs that ultimately do better commercial business than the film on the strength of the music alone, while some are scores written to illustrate the film and inform the emotional journey; this for example is music by George Dreyfus written for the 1983 Australian film ‘Waterfront’.
When a film maker manages to combine original score and popular song a happy balance can arise, and that’s what the music from the Lucky Miles motion picture soundtrack sounds like. There’s this dramatic percussion of Trilok Gurtu kicking off the CD and setting the intense and arresting circumstance of the film, followed by a series of more relaxed tracks that allow the evaporation of boundaries both musically and on the emotional level... which also reflects the film’s journey.
There’s nice contrast between the familiar such as Lily Connors which almost seems alien as compared to the alienToto La Momposina, which seems completely familiar (and yet we know it is alien – from another culture).
The music from the motion picture is selected by the films director Michael James Rowland and the Artistic Director of Womad, Thomas Boorman so there’s little wonder the quality of the music is so high; from snippets of Puccini’s Madame Butterfly sung by Jay Hunter Morris with the Australian Opera and the Ballet Orchestra at the Sydney Opera House through to breezy steel guitar and the laied back Remmy Ongala or the unmistakably Aussie Coloured Stone.
The soundtrack has many of the elements of the film simply by reflecting so many styles of expression from a world music platform, and the score material from Trilok Gurtu resonates.
This South Australian film Lucky Miles has much to offer, not least the very welcome release of the music from the motion picture film.
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