Music Composed by Dario Marianelli
Rating: ****

Seven years is far too long to wait for a Terry Gilliam film, and it’s quite a shame that when one finally comes, critics and audiences once again miss the point. Audiences either seemed to expect a faithful biography of the brothers’ lives, or a yet another Shrek-inspired fairy tale comedy. When people saw that the film was neither, nobody seemed willing to accept it for the vibrant marvel that it was. The closest thing he’s ever come to making a popcorn movie, The Brothers Grimm is by no means Gilliam’s great film, but it may be his most visually mesmerizing, and breathes the long-stagnant-and-Disneyfied life and black enchantment back into the Grimm’s timeless fairy tale icons. As with all Gilliam films, The Brothers Grimm has had a long and complicated history of making it to the screen, and the film’s score was no different. Gilliam initially hired Goran Bregovic to score the film with gypsy music, but he quickly realized that a project of this magnitude (read: budget) would need something a little more potent. He then turned to European art-house film composer, Dario Marianelli (by Gilliam standards, this is a big mainstream concession). Terry Gilliam hasn’t had a score worthy of his visionary filmmaking since his two major collaborations with Michael Kamen (Brazil and The Adventures of Baron Munchausen), but that finally seems to have changed that here. Though this is Marianelli’s first Hollywood film, he’s proved himself as a more than capable and unique voice through his work in the European cinema, particularly in his score for the evocative Colleridge bio-epic, Pandemonium. In Pandemonium, he had the unenviable task of creating music that could complement without overpowering the haunted hallucinations of Colleridge’s romantic poetry. In Brother’s Grimm, he has to contend with an equally formidable pair of literary figures, whose lyrical and terrifying stories weren’t that far removed from Colleridge’s drug induced nightmares. The big difference, however, is that Brothers’ Grimm is not an attempt at biographical realism but an exquisitely crafted piece of escapism. The composer accordingly has a great deal more free reign to let loose with the orchestral fury, and this particular composer does not disappoint with any lack of inspiration.

Dario Marianelli

Marianelli’s score is a beautiful complement to Gilliam’s fairy tale world, but don’t expect any whimsical sentiment – Horner’s world, this is not. Though Gilliam depicts the fairy tale world with enchanting visual poetry worthy of Cocteau, grisly goings-on lurk behind every tree – this is a world where wild horses gobble up children alive, where a nervous twitch can leave a kitten butchered within a heartbeat. Marianelli’s score is accordingly black, conjuring violent nightmarish images far more frequently than sweet nostalgia. The score tends to alternate between alluring melody and long passages of violent dissonance. In fact, I’m rather surprised at how popular this score has been with the soundtrack community, given how uncompromisingly dark the bulk of Marianelli’s writing is. Certainly, there are prominent themes, but they’re drawn from a far darker and subtler ilk than your typical Williams fan-pleasers. The forest gets an innocent but vaguely menacing theme that seems like the ideal music to draw children into dark woodland traps. The brothers themselves get a clumsily macabre march that brings back fond memories of Gilliam’s Jabberwocky days. The march is designed to make a mockery of the brothers’ sham enterprise, a plot element that only briefly features in the film - as a result, the march gets very little airing outside of the opening and closing credits sequences. The forest theme, however, is used far more frequently, and Marianelli runs the simple melody through a staggeringly varied range of permutations. Particularly impressive is the lush romantic treatment he gives the theme when he applies it to the maliciously seductive queen in the film’s final act (“It’s You: You Know The Story”). Marianelli also includes brief quotations from more famous classical works, with particularly frequent use of Brahms’ “Lullaby” (though usually in far more unsettling scenarios than the melody itself would suggest).

Melody, however, tends to take a backseat to uncompromisingly dissonant textures in Brothers Grimm. I can rarely stand this much dissonance in long durations, but Marianelli has a knack for it that most of his more prestigious peers lack. He never settles for the insufferable start-stop-stinger approach (the bane of horror films), nor does he clutter his ensemble with unnecessary layers for the pure sake of making more noise. His experiments with various unsettling sounds and effects, but he keeps his writing crisp and precise, never tossing in more ideas than the ear can follow at once. More importantly, manages to keep a linear sense of melodic shape and momentum running, even when tone clusters are grinding together. True, his dissonant textures do occasionally recall the few composers who are good at this sort of thing, particularly Elliot Goldenthal (Alien 3, Michael Collins, In Dreams, and Sphere all make brief cameos – by the way, I’d like to point out that this is at least the third time this year that I’ve reviewed a new score with a prominent Elliot Goldenthal influence. Directors clearly like it when their composers try to imitate him – so why doesn’t anybody give him any bloody work?). But that’s not to bash Marianelli for any lack of originality – while the influence is clear, his writing is far more streamlined and economical than Goldenthal tends to be, and the approach is refreshing, a journey that still resonates powerfully separated from Gilliam’s lush visuals. The orchestral demons are somewhat pacified by the time the album reaches a close (“And they lived happily ever after”), but even the happy ending seems to be laced with gothic mysticism. No complaints here, but the feint-hearted should proceed with caution.

At 72 minutes, the disc can be a bit overwhelming if you attempt the listen in one sitting, but that’s only due to an overabundance of substantial and uncompromising content. There’s certainly no padding. The black tone and the rarity of warmth may turn some off, but if you feel at home in the darker side of the Grimm’s world, you’ll find much to appreciate here. It’s a pleasure to report that Gilliam has finally found another composer who can match his macabre flights of fancy, and I look forward to seeing Marianelli’s star on the rise.

Music Composed and Produced by Dario Marianelli; Orchestrated and Conducted by Benjamin Wallfisch; Featuring The London Oratory School Schola, Michael Watkins, Takuya Kikuchi; Percussion: Simon Allen and Paul Clarvis; Recorded and Mixed by Rupert Coulson at Air Lyndhurst, London; Availability: In print; Label (Catalogue): Milan Records, (M2-36136); Release Date: August 23, 2005

01. Dickensian Beginnings (3′24)
02. Shrewd Thespians (0′42)
03. Red Riding Hood (3′56)
04. The Queen’s Story (5′13)
05. The Forest Comes to Life (9′14)
06. Jake’s Pledge (2′03)
07. Muddy (3′08)
08. Inside the Tower (3′12)
09. The Queen Awakens (6′25)
10. The French Arrive (2′52)
11. Burning the Forest (2′24)
12. The Eclipse Begins (6′52)
13. A Slice of Quiche Would Be Nice (4′37)
14. It’s You: You Know the Story (8′03)
15. Sleeping Beauties (3′50)
16. And They Lived Happily Ever After (3′40)
17. End Credits (2′08)

Total Playing Time: 71′43