Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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22 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Truely Awesome, 4 Dec 2006
The Soundtrack to The Fountain is an intense, emotional but rewarding experience, but be warned! this is not the run of the mill, orchestral style that seems to permeate movies these days, in an all too predictable way. This is more a case of The kronos Quartet meets Mogwai in a dark alley for a good dust-up. If you are familiar with God Speed You Black Emperor/ A Silver Mnt Zion's anthemic post rock orchestrations for guitar and strings you will no doubt love whats on offer here.
Clint Mansell lets his inspirations show thru with a few nods to Phillip Glass and the afore mentioned GSYBE. A brooding emotional sound bulds on repeated(in a good way) piano refrains and strings to represent the various story lines present in the film, that gradually build into a stirring, emotional and intense finale on "Death is the road to Awe" The album is worth it just for this track alone.
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16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Road to awe, 6 April 2007
You can tell a lot about a movie by its soundtrack -- comedies get cute pop tunes, action gets harder stuff, and drama has somber compositions.
But the exquisite genre-bender "Fountain" was graced with a sweeping, celestial collection of songs, which were a collaboration between composer Clint Mansell's group, the Kronos Quartet, and the Scottish experimental group Mogwai. It's filled with the sorrow of death, the joy of love, and all the feeling that music can muster.
It opens with a gentle piano solo, which trickles into a web of slow, ominous strings. "The Last Man" opens the album on a somber note, and moves down the emotional scale from jagged unhappiness to a gentle, slightly achy sound. As it blossoms out into a rising violin solo, your heart will be breaking.
Then it dips into more uncomfortable turf -- the eerie "Holy Dread," with its hints of chants, dark drums and rattly noises, and the shimmering swirling guitars of "Tree of Life." But then Mansell and Mogwai move back into the orchestral mood -- sweeping, shimmering melodies with a sort of spacey feel, and dark-edged neoclassical instrumentals.
It rises to a heart-pounding climax in "Death is the Road To Awe," with the music getting louder and more intense, and picking up tempo... before exploding into what sounds like an angelic rock song. The final song is very different in tone -- very quiet, mellow and almost happy.
Well, Darren Aronofsky's movie is full of death, war, sorrow, love, space travel, and immortality. Somehow it's not too surprising that a normal soundtrack wouldn't do, and that a mixture of neoclassical instrumentals and space-rock are needed to really accentuate the beauty on the screen.
The music is full of emotion -- sorrow, yearning, love, pain, and loneliness, climaxing in the exultant chorale and explosively soaring "Death is the Road...". To achieve this, Mansell uses some pretty simple instrumentation, with some sort of ambient melodies played with classical instrumentation. He layers plenty of shimmering strings and rippling piano into a sweeping web, and adds in some odd electronic sounds and some tribal drums for atmosphere.
Best of all? Though the soundtrack mirrors the development of the movie's events, it can be enjoyed on its own merits, for its own beauty, and not just for way it makes you think of what happened in the movie.
One of the best things about "The Fountain" is that soaring, emotion-packed soundtrack, which is almost as good on its own as it is with Aronofsky's movie. An exquisite, powerful experience.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Perfect music for a superb film, 22 May 2007
Very rarely do films scores so perfectly match the film they are intended for and this score for the excellent film 'The Fountain' is one of those rare occasions. It's rare for even part of a film score to move me, but this one managed it time and time again.
Absolutely wonderful in all ways possible. Even if you couldn't get to grips with the film then at least give the score a try. It's well worth it.
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~ Clint Mansell
~ Kronos Quartet
![The Fountain [DVD] [2006]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/511A8Icl%2BSL._SL500_SS90_.jpg)
DVD ~ Hugh Jackman
by Darren Aronofsky; Kent Williams
~ Original Soundtrack
