The Fifth Element [SOUNDTRACK]

Eric Serra

Product Details

• Audio CD (May 6, 1997)
• Original Release Date: May 6, 1997
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Soundtrack
• Label: Virgin Records US
• ASIN: B000000WE5
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (98 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #4,302 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

  Popular in this category: (What's this?)

  #53 in

  Music > Soundtracks > By Decade > 1990s

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com
While The Professional marked the American breakthrough of populist French director Luc Besson (and his long-time composer, Eric Serra), the ambitious, futuristic sci-fi adventure The Fifth Element proved to be Besson's stateside sophomore jinx at the box office. Still, Serra's score shouldn't be overlooked. Easily the composer's most digitally daring studio concoction, The Fifth Element offers up a brave stew of synth beats, orchestral flourishes, and ethnic influences ranging from Middle Eastern modalities to Italian operatic arias. --Jerry McCulley

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars I thought I was the only weirdo!!!, July 13, 2001

By	"mouse86" (mental hollywood) - See all my reviews

When I looked this up I was very surprised that it got high ratings from everyone else. I expected to be like the only one that liked this CD! For starters, I'm not the kind of person you'd expect to buy this CD. I'm fourteen, and I like alternative and rock. However, I have a soft spot for orchestral material too (HUGE Mozart fan, haha), and am very fond of movie scores and compositions. Often times I'll be carrying something like the Sleepy Hollow score and other teens will ask me what artists are on the album, and I'll be like,"No. You don't get it." I pretty much decided to get this soundtrack when I found out "The Diva Dance" was on it. It's actually amazing how almost every single piece of music in the movie is in the soundtrack. Besides the uniquely electronic-sounding tracks that give the movie a futuristic appeal, the orchestral score on this soundtrack is absoulutely gorgeous. The main Leeloo theme (that line of notes that is sort of music box-like that is used throughout the movie) adds a very innocent sadness to every scene in the movie it touches, and is gorgeous to listen to on a CD. I also love the lighter acoustic version of "Little Light of Love" that I assume was never used or cut from the movie. This CD also has its humorous moments; The Ruby Rap is hilarious, and the bonus track "Agnot! Wot?" is really fun, adding quote clips from the film onto the beats of the earlier used "Korben Dallas" song, anybody who has seen the movie will love it. And if you just want to totally weird out your friends who HAVEN'T seen this movie, you can show them the opera track leading into the "Diva Dance", which adds little techno beats behind the gorgeous voice of Plavalaguna. (But it's not really her, of course). Anyway, if you liked this movie, and noted that the score was pretty nice, you should get this. You'll like it more than you expected.

36 of 39 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Why can't I rate this 4.5 stars?!, June 6, 2003

By	Clarissa "MoonGoddess" (Ontario, California) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

This is a brilliant, if not experimental soundtrack! I'm not qualified to compare this to Eric Serra's other works but if this is any indication of his talents then I must check out his other compositions. "The Fifth Element" is a futuristic sci-fi action-comedy and the music captures that perfectly. The movie was rather good but I found myself turning the volume up whenever the funky rhythms came on. This album is an excellent marriage of cinematic orchestral and middle eastern with synthy beats. The flow is nicely balanced and, while most of it is funky at best, some are actually quite mellow and lush, as displayed in the surprisingly beautiful "Leeloo" with its subtle flourishment of strings, which blends into the dramatic, easy listening (ie, piano), chilled-out electronic fusioned "Five Millenia Later".
Most shocking of all is the groovy reggae tune "Heat", which SHOULD sound out of place but actually fits in well with this strange, eclectic union of genres. And of course we can't forget about the haunting operatic/Italian techno aria "Lucia Di Lammermoor" which goes hand in hand with "The Diva Dance" and is performed by the angelic soprano and VERY talented Inva Mulla Tchako.

Another song worth mentioning is the End Titles Version of "Little Light Of Love" which thankfully doesn't feature the singing of Sting-wannabe R.X.R.A and replaces him with soaring female voices instead. It's shorter in length but has more energy to it with a middle eastern flare and a rock edge because of the guitars.

This is hardly a masterpiece worthy of awards but it's interesting, fun to listen to, and very different from your average movie score.

27 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Where is the famous 5th Element movie Taxi Chase Scene?, July 30, 2004

By	Sufy "Sufy" (Columbus, OH United States) - See all my reviews

For all of those who suffered the hardships of looking for that song, I finally discovered that it's called "Alaach Taadi", Arabic meaning: "Why run away?", which fits the taxi chase scene perfectly. This song belongs to a world-famous Rai artist known as Khaled. It's part of his "N'ssi N'ssi" album (Arabic meaning: Forget! Forget!). I thought that this song (like most of you) would be included in this Serra's album. Khaled's famous 5th Element Taxi Chase Scene is available at Amazaon.com.
Best regards,