Archive
Best Scores of 2017 – France, Part I
The second installment in my annual series of articles looking at the best “under the radar” scores from around the world concentrates on music from films from the land of Delerue, Jarre, and Desplat: la belle France! There has been an embarrassment of riches emanating from French cinema in 2017, and this first set of six reviews encompasses a number of outstanding scores, including two by one of Composers of the Year, Cyrille Aufort. Read more…
Best of 2013 in Film Music – France
FLIGHT OF THE STORKS – Éric Neveux
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Flight of the Storks (Le Vol des Cigognes) is a French TV mini series starring Harry Treadaway as Jonathan, a young English academic ornithologist who teams up with a colleague to follow storks on their migration from Switzerland to Africa. However, when his colleague is found dead in mysterious circumstances, Jonathan finds himself caught up in an international web of intrigue, travelling through Bulgaria, Turkey, the Middle East, and the Congo along the pathway of the migrating storks, with a dogged Swiss detective hot on his heels. This mini-series was directed by Jan Kounenm adapted from the novel by Jean-Christophe Grangé, co-starred Rutger Hauer and Perdita Weeks, and was scored by French composer Éric Neveux. Read more…
MA MAMAN EST EN AMÉRIQUE, ELLE A RENCONTRÉ BUFFALO BILL – Fabrice Aboulker
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Ma Maman Est En Amérique, Elle a Rencontré Buffalo Bill is an animated French film directed by Marc Boreal and Thibaud Catel, based on the graphic novel of the same name by Jean Regnaud and Émile Bravo. It tells the story of Jean, a six year old boy starting a new school. Having grown up without a mother, and not knowing who or where she is, he begins to make up tall tales about her and her adventurous life in order to impress his new school friends – even going so far as to create fake postcards and letters from her from Africa and the United States. However, his neighbor Michele, knows the truth about Jean’s real life, and the young friends bond over their unusual, imaginary family. The score for Ma Maman Est En Amérique, Elle a Rencontré Buffalo Bill is by the French composer and songwriter Fabrice Aboulker, and is yet another unexpected delight. Light, playful, thematic, and with some lovely passages for piano, strings and woodwinds, the score belies its children’s cartoon roots almost entirely by containing surprisingly sophisticated writing, all performed superbly by the Macedonian Radio Symphonic Orchestra, recorded in Skopje. Read more…
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