Customer Reviews

The International [Original Motion Picture Soundtrack]

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
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1 star:		(1)

 

 

I purchased this CD hoping it would give me a good idea of the capabilities of my stero setup after upgrading speaker cables and interconnects and adding a tube pre-amp and a Music Hall DAC (Digital-to-analog converter) to my setup. This 2-channel disc was a great choice to test the highs and lows. Musically great as well - check out the samples.

I picked this up from a recommendation list in a high-end audio buyers guide. Since I'm a fan of electronic music, and recently got a really nice headphone setup for myself, I figured I should pick up some CD's on the "you've gotta hear this on a good system" list.

You definitely wouldn't want to put this CD into a shuffle mix, some of the songs here will sound very strange when not in the context of the whole thing. But for a complete sitting, it's a very good mix, and really does show what your system can do. There's quite a lot of low end in the CD, and you'll need a system that can cover everything down to subwoofer level freqencies to really get the full feel.

As for the songs themselves, I personally thought it was a well done set. Again, you really do need to listen to the whole thing start to finish, it's got a very specific flow to it, in my opinion.

If you're a fan of electronic music, and want to listen to a full-range soundtrack, this is a great test disk.

The International is a contemporary - and somewhat prescient - action movie/political thriller starring Clive Owen as Louis Salinger, an Interpol agent who teams up with a Manhattan district attorney to expose a high-profile financial institution's role in an international arms dealing ring. The film, which also stars Naomi Watts, Armin Mueller-Stahl and Ulrich Thomsen, was directed by German leading light Tom Tykwer; as he did on his previous movies (notably Run Lola Run and Perfume: The Story of a Murderer), Tykwer teamed up with regular collaborators Reinhold Heil and Johnny Klimek to provide the film's score.

After the unexpectedly excellent neoclassicism of Perfume: The Story of a Murderer, The International is a return to the Heil and Klimek of old, in that it is essentially a synth rhythm score prettied up with a few sampled string lines here and there. Most of the score comprises shifting synth tones, industrial sound effects, and electronic rhythms and pulses, occasionally overlaid with a specific `color' to make each cue a little more unique: tinkling synth strings and piano chords in "Salinger Comes Home", a more rambunctious rhythm and rumbling timpani in "The Calvini Hit", a sampled harp in "The Consultant's Death". For long stretches, though, virtually nothing happens. Cues like "Salinger in Luxembourg", "Bugs" and "The Guggenheim Shootout" offer virtually nothing in terms of musical creativity or an emotional connection. They're just there, like a metronome, presenting the repetitive thump of an internal beat over and over, but doing little else.

This score wouldn't be so disappointing if I didn't know what these composers were capable of; there's no personality, no depth, no real point to this score other than to provide the film with tempo, add another layer to the sound effects, and occasionally add a slightly warmer pseudo-human touch to what is otherwise a cold chase thriller. Scores like these really have no reason for existing outside of the film for which they were written; some electronic scores can be very exciting and entertaining, but unfortunately The International isn't one of them. For long stretches, it's like listening to an industrial mechanical hum, like the one your microwave might make while cooking your Lean Cuisine. Back to square one for Pale 3, I'm afraid.