MOVIE MUSIC UK

THROWBACK THIRTY

Original Review by Jonathan Broxton

Little Buddha, directed by the Oscar-winning Italian filmmaker Bernardo Bertolucci, is a drama film that intertwines two primary narratives. The first narrative follows a young boy named Jesse Conrad, living in Seattle with his parents, Dean and Lisa. Tibetan monks, led by Lama Norbu, visit the Conrad family, believing that Jesse is the reincarnation of a revered Buddhist teacher, Lama Dorje. As Jesse and his parents grapple with this revelation, they travel to Bhutan to further explore this possibility, and he meets two other boys – Raju and Gita – who may also be reincarnations of Lama Dorje . The second narrative is a historical recount of the life of Prince Siddhartha, who would later become the first Buddha and the founder of the Buddhist religion This story is woven throughout the film as Lama Norbu tells Jesse about Siddhartha’s journey. The film depicts Siddhartha’s sheltered life in his father’s palace, his encounters with suffering in the world, his renunciation of royal life, and his path to enlightenment under the Bodhi tree.

The film stars Keanu Reeves as Prince Siddhartha, young Alex Wiesendanger as Jesse, Bridget Fonda and Chris Isaak as Jesse’s parents, and Ying Ruocheng as Lama Norbu; Reeves’s portrayal of Siddhartha brought significant attention to the film, given his rising stardom in the 1990s, and marked one of the first ‘serious’ drama roles of the young actor’s career as he sought to move away from the action and goofy comedy roles that had defined his work to that point.

Upon its release, Little Buddha received mixed reviews. Critics praised its visual beauty and the ambitious storytelling – Bertolucci’s films are usually nothing less than spectacular – but some felt the film’s narrative was uneven, and the film was not a box office success anywhere except France. Musically, the film marked another high point on the film music career of Japanese composer Ryuichi Sakamoto, who had won an Oscar for his score for Bertolucci’s film The Last Emperor in 1987, and also scored Bertolucci’s follow-up film, The Sheltering Sky, in 1990. Little Buddha is the least well-known of their three collaborations, but fans of their style will be delighted to know that it is just as good. Bertolucci always encouraged Sakamoto to explore his rich, thematic, orchestral, emotional side, and he did just that on Little Buddha.

The score was recorded in England with the London Symphony Orchestra and the Ambrosian Singers, and is augmented by an array of Indian soloists who add a great deal of geographic specificity and authenticity to the score, especially the flashback scenes involving Prince Siddhartha. These ethnic elements were overseen by composer and arranger Zakir Hussain, and include vocal performances by Shasheen Samad Kanika and Shruti Sadolikar, and performances by Carnatic violinist L. Subramaniam.

The score’s “Main Theme,” as heard in the album’s opening cue, is a beauty, a wash of elegant violins imbued with a sense of deep emotion, especially when the strings are joined by a soothing choir during its second half. This main theme is prevalent throughout a some of the rest of the score – it features prominently in cues such as “River Ashes” and in a slightly altered form in the lovely “The Reincarnation” – and anyone who has ever gravitated towards this part of Sakamoto’s musical personality will find it to be enormously satisfying, but it is a tiny bit disappointing that it isn’t more prominent.

The Indian ethnic music combines beautifully with the western orchestra in numerous cues, beginning with the magically spiritual “Opening Titles” which augments the strings with sparkling metallic textures. Later, “Raga Kirvani,” the second half of “Nepalese Caravan,” the evocative “Faraway Song,” the enchanting “The Middle Way,” and “Raga Naiki Kanhra” are the most authentic pieces, almost coming across as source music, and are expressive cues for Carnatic violins and dreamy vocals, over dense raga drones and bank of rhythmic tablas. Some of the sampled vocals in second half of “Nepalese Caravan” are highly unusual, and have a chattering, wavering sound that is quite fascinating, while the woodwinds in “The Middle Way” almost sound like birdsong.

However, the me, the score is at its strongest when Sakamoto is writing classically romantic orchestral music, especially in the historical sequences accompanying Siddhartha’s journey towards enlightenment. “The First Meeting” is warm and pretty, with a soothing sound that emanates from the lovely combination writing for strings and harp, and melody that over the course of the score becomes associated with Jesse and his family. The first half of “Nepalese Caravan” is slow but dramatic, offering a sense of epic scale to the majestic vistas of the Himalayas. “Victory” has a chaotic, but celebratory, sound that makes it one of the most identifiably different cues, while the first half of the subsequent “Red Dust” has a sweeping sound which makes it a tonal cousin of Maurice Jarre’s Lawrence of Arabia.

“Exodus” revisits the unusual chattering vocal textures from the “Nepalese Caravan,” and here inserts them into an increasingly lush and powerful bank of orchestral textures that rise to lovely crescendos. “Evan’s Funeral” underscores a scene where young Jesse comforts his father at the funeral of one of his close friends and colleagues who committed suicide. “The Trial” is intense and harsh – one of the few moments in the score that is so – and then the first part of “Enlightenment” actually has the stylistics of an action cue, with prominent brass, more intense rhythmic and percussive content, and moments of choral revelation that are unexpectedly powerful before it eventually becomes soothing, calming, and peaceful.

However, for me the piece de resistance is the nine-minute final cue “Acceptance – End Credits,” in which Sakamoto initially presents a gorgeous romantic solo soprano vocal performed by Catherine Bott, singing the lyrics of the Prajnaparamita Heart Sutra in Sanskrit – “The Heart of the Perfection of Wisdom” – in the style of an Italian bel canto opera aria. This then segues into several arrangements both the main theme – serene, emotionally poignant string textures backed by a choir – and the tender theme for Jesse and his family. The way the two ideas blend together over the course of the cue underline the film’s final revelation: that Jesse, Raju, and Gita are *all* reincarnations of Lama Dorje, each a separate manifestation of his body, his speech, and his mind.

Little Buddha is a beautiful score, imbued with reverence and spirituality and a genuine emotional content that is easy to appreciate. I have always felt that this score was one of Ryuichi Sakamoto’s most approachable, effective, and compelling ‘traditional’ orchestral scores, and as such it will certainly appeal to anyone whose appreciation for the great Japanese musician comes via scores like The Last Emperor, The Sheltering Sky, and (to a lesser extent) Wuthering Heights and Silk, as opposed to his more experimental and modernistic electronics-heavy works. Not only that, the final cue for me is a Sakamoto career highlight, and if you only experience one aspect of this score, make it that.

Buy the Little Buddha soundtrack from the Movie Music UK Store

Track Listing:

• Main Theme (2:50)
• Opening Titles (1:48)
• The First Meeting (1:51)
• Raga Kirvani (1:29)
• Nepalese Caravan (3:02)
• Victory (1:45)
• Faraway Song (3:18)
• Red Dust (4:39)
• River Ashes (2:26)
• Exodus (2:33)
• Evan´s Funeral (4:29)
• The Middle Way (1:51)
• Raga Naiki Kanhra/The Trial (5:25)
• Enlightenment (4:29)
• The Reincarnation (1:52)
• Gompa-Heart Sutra (2:38)
• Acceptance – End Credits (9:00)

Milan Records 74321-18031-2 (1994)

Running Time: 55 minutes 25 seconds

Music composed and conducted by Ryuichi Sakamoto. Orchestrations by Gil Goldstein. Additional music and Indian music arrangements by Zakir Hussain. Special vocal performances by Catherine Bott, Shasheen Samad Kanika and Shruti Sadolikar. Featured musical soloist L. Subramaniam. Recorded and mixed by Steve Price. Edited by Michael Connell. Album produced by Ryuichi Sakamoto.