Soundtrack Review: The Way Back (2011)
| Reviewer: JØrn Tillnes |
The Way Back Soundtrack Review: This is a review of the motion picture score The Way Back by Burkhard Dallwitz.
"It has been a long time coming, but The Way Back is a very strong comeback"
It's been a while since we have heard from German composer Burkhard Dallwitz. The last I remember of him was an interesting score to The Truman Show and that was 1998. Since then he has kept quite busy but far from prolific. Last year he wrote and composed the score to the new Peter Weir movie The Way Back and it was released in January of this year. It seems like a harsh movie where you follow a group of escapees walking 4000 miles to get to freedom after a rather unpleasant stay in a Siberian Gulag. Peter Weir was of course the director for The Truman Show so these two has collaborated well in the past.
Track List
| 1. Interrogation | ***** |
| 2. New Arrivals | ***** |
| 3. Plans for Escape | **** |
| 4. A Brave Man | *** |
| 5. Escape | ***** |
| 6. Lake Baikal | ***** |
| 7. Freedom? | ***** |
| 8. Mirages Don't Have Birds | **** |
| 9. The Abandoned Temple | *** |
| 10. Water! | *** |
| 11. Tibet | **** |
| 12. India | ***** |
| 13. Keep on Walking | **** |
| 14. Closing Credits | ***** |
Trailer
Judging by the trailer music, it seemed like it could be an all out action score with heavy percussion, but luckily it isn't. Not that I don't love a good action score, but I feel this film is deeper than that. There's the element of extreme human drama as you follow these characters on the way to freedom.
Apart from the cue 'Escape', there's very little in the way of action. The whole score sounds like a dreamy, ambient and ethnic mix, but what makes this special is the simple yet great themes. Specially 'Lake Baikal' sounds fantastic with it's grand sweeping overtones as it's playing to a slightly dark synth tone. This is a wonderful theme that I immediately started humming to.
Let's get back to 'Escape' which as a great action effort that can only be bested by adding some sort of melody to it. I love the fast paced rhythm and the slightly heavy percussion in the beginning. It really gets the pulse going and represents something I haven't heard Dallwitz do. It just shows his potential as an action composer and he definitely has talent in that area.
If you skip to the end and listen to 'Closing Credits' then you will hear a medley or a suite of everything this score has to offer except the action part. It goes without saying that this is one of the best cues of the score and ends it on a high.
Conclusion
Welcome back Burkhard! It has been a long time coming, but The Way Back is a very strong comeback. It's moody and dark, but it also has some triumphant moments and you can almost imagine the character struggle across the wastelands. It is one of those scores I will listen to whenever I need to sit back and relax without being overloaded by to complex orchestration or thumping action beats. Grab it now if you can!
CUE RATING: 84.2
->Buy the MP3 Album on Amazon<-
Listen to The Rite soundtrack by Alex Heffes below:
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