Review of the Music

En Route, the latest film from Director Xu Zhang, is a charming short film about three groups of strangers that don’t speak the same language, yet find they are able to communicate and share similarities in unexpected ways. It was created much in the french tradition in regards to it’s very intimate cinematography and plot development. It is a light drama, which features both moments of sad introspection, and silly comedy.

The composer for this project, Pantawit Kiangsiri, was very cautious in his placement of music. This sensitivity to picture, allows us to feel the solace and desolation of the sad characters. This can be especially noticed during the long sequence between the German woman and Assyrian man. This is one of the most endearing cues and well worth the brief silence. The score as a whole was conceived as a theme and variations. Very uncommon for the medium, this set of variations opens with an almost Broadway style sweeping melodic statement after the opening train ostinato is presented.

Once this melody is engrained, I urge the listener to seek it out in all the subsequent cues, for it is present throughout. The second cue presents the theme in a lullaby like variation with solo flute and guitar. This latin tinge is very appropriate given what is going on screen with the latin gypsy woman charming a young crying child with her magic tricks. The music is both endearing and a little childlike which does well in serving the picture. The third cue is after a long stretch of silence with the sad German women and the Assyrian. They are both unable to communicate but are able to offer solace to one another. Then Pantawit ingeniously presents a Satie-like waltz in solo piano which poignantly makes the moment all the more bittersweet. Pantawit still sticks with the melody here, inverting it and changing the harmony to give it that taste of the french style.

The fourth cue is much more comical in instrumentation using a string quartet and solo trumpet. The tone here is more lackadaisical with trumpet lazily slurring the melodic statement. This brings us to the end credit cue. It contains the final reprise of the main melody which is presented with a full feature of the piano much like in a concerto. This continues through the credit sequence until the credits begin to roll. At which point, Pantawit employs a double variation of the Satie-like piano cue we heard during the most poignant moments of the film. This variation excels at retaining the melodic framework of both the main theme and the variation, while seamlessly creating a fresh new iteration of the material.

The skill presented in this short film score surpasses much of what is commonly found in the genre. With an ensemble of 10 musicians, Pantawit was able to encompass a wide breadth of styles and colors in this score while strictly adhering to the sensitive needs of the picture. Fortunately, these film cues will also have life outside of the picture. Pantawit plans to arrange these cues into a classical theme and variations for solo piano which will be premiered next year by Zizhu Zhao.