Wednesday 17 September 2014

Movie Soundtracks; Hanna (2011)

Escape wavefold - Chemical Brothers

The entire score of this movie was composed by the British big beat duo The Chemical Brothers. Given how intricate it must be to compose electronic music to an already existing story and plot, whilst remaining true to the movie's themes and motifs, and being in charge of an element that will ultimately make or break a movie; I widely regard it as their best work.
In fact, I widely regard this movie as the best work of most of the cast and crew involved.
Hanna tells the story of Hanna Heller, a 16 year old lab-created assassin raised by her father, an Ex-CIA agent, in a secluded forest in northern Finland. Hanna is trained from a young age to be a master assassin but it is evident she has missed out on a lot due to her upbringing.
As Hanna is dispatched on a deadly mission which takes place in Europe, she is bewildered and intrigued by the life she has missed out on.

Hanna differs quite significantly to many action thrillers. The most important point being the themes and motifs.
The role of music, stories, innocence, childhood and fairytales are recurring themes throughout the movie.
 
  • Hanna's favourite book is a child's fairytale book. Part of the mission in europe is the arrangement for Hanna to meet her father at Mr.Grimm's house.
  • Hanna tries to convince her father Erik to explain music, but is later unimpressed by his objective dictionary explanation because she wishes to experience this life first hand.
  • Throughout the movie, she is intrigued and bewildered by music and by people singing and dancing, which is something she has never had growing up in Northern Finland. 

It is this intrigued innocence, which contrasts the genre and mood of the movie which is most striking in Hanna's character, portrayed by the brilliant, beautiful, and irish Saoirse Ronan.

This is reflected in the score with such themes as The Devil is in the Beats and The Devil is in the Details as well as Hanna's theme.  The musical motifs used by the chemical brothers link in and remain consistent with the fairy tale theme of childhood innocence confronting the modern loud, electronic and ‘synthetic’ world.

Having re-watched this movie recently, it only suddenly dawned on me how important this movie is to me, even from a musical perspective.
Between February and June this year, I actively set out to completely rejuvenate my old setup into something completely different, something raw and action packed which would tie together quite contrasting motifs within my own musical tastes.

One of the most experimental being the incorporation of Digitech Bass Synth Wah which mimics the Basslines signature to those of British big beat.
It has long since been known that Hanna is one of my favourite movies and movie soundtracks and I went out of my way to find something that would sound like this soundtrack.
something raw and action packed which would tie together quite contrasting motifs and themes.


Without knowing, I was looking for something a bit more Hanna.

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