Okay, I'm sitting here listening to the soundtrack to
Requiem for a Dream. It's almost over, and, much like the movie, this listen has been
interesting, something I had to sit through,
disjointed (one might say
choppy at parts), very well designed, and it held my
attention all the way to the end.
This soundtrack starts out slowly, lulling you in with the Summer Overture, and moving from there to a short techno-break, called Party. This song ends approximately where I would certainly feel the middle of a piece of music to be, jumping straightaway into a much slower, laid back song that goes along with Harry's dream of Marion on the pier, called Coney Island Dreaming. It chops from scene to scene, right with the movie. Clint Mansell composed this music right along with the movie, not even allowing the listening audience to get full songs out of snippets that weren't fully featured in the movie. Now, note that I'm not crying about this, I'm just saying. Here's a soundtrack that isn't afraid to skip fadeaways and such, instead letting the people who've got the soundtrack get what they came for.
The soundtrack follows the movie directly, from Summer to Winter. From the beginning of the movie, which was full of dreams and hope, to the end, which was full of withdrawal, despair, and general sadness, although not without its own brand of... well... I'd call it 'hope' I guess. Accordingly, the music becomes much more sketchy, with the eerie distortion of dissonant violin music becoming much more prevalent over the soft bells and traditional quartet sounds.
All in all, this is a CD that is definitely staying in my collection. The Kronos Quartet plays a mean set of strings, and Piano me all you like, Clint Mansell kicks Michael Nyman's buttocks with this one. All Gattaca aside though, this thing is scrumptious, the violins have been stuck in my head since I went to this movie, so I'm gonna sit down and listen to this album, possibly the only way I know of to get them out.