It's a rare and unpleasant experience when I am called upon to review a score that is poorly made. Such is the case with "Things We Lost in the Fire," by Gustavo Santaolalla and Johan Söderqvist. While I am not familiar with the work of Söderqvist, I have heard Santaolalla's music before, from both "Brokeback Mountain" and "Babel." While both of those entries won Academy Awards for Best Score, Santaolalla is not a name that generally stirs up the excitement of soundtrack fans. This is, perhaps, that many believe that there were scores more worthy than that of Santaolalla's for the Oscar crown. While such resentment makes for an unfair judgment of his work, there is no hiding the fact that this recent effort will do little to change fan's opinions about his track record.
"Things We Lost in the Fire" is credited to Santaolalla and Söderqvist as co-composers, though it hardly seems possible that it took a collaborative effort to produce the score I heard. First off, out of 30 tracks, the majority offer mere snippets of running time (some in the neighborhood of 40 to 50 seconds). It's impossible to get into any type of groove, so to speak, when cues are so brief. Secondly, the audio quality sounded as if the music was transferred from a cassette tape. Not to be harsh, and maybe it was just my copy that I was listening to, but there was a background distortion that sounded as if air was slowly leaking from a balloon. That makes it even more difficult to embrace the work, no matter how good it might be.
The score itself can be categorized as a completely minimal effort. While there are spot moments of elegance and lamentation associated with the music, the majority of it played out like a sample reel of guitar licks and slight orchestral underscore. It's possible that the sound designer might edit this work in to be effective in the movie, but on the soundtrack, it's downright challenging to find any consistency with the music. While I am unsure how the composers divvied up the scoring duties, I can say that what they produced is one of the least engaging scores that I've heard in all of 2007. Perhaps this soundtrack might have had a chance if some cues were combined for lengthier tracks and if the music had a better sound quality, but overall, it just didn't work out for me.
Looking ahead, I don't think there can be any way in which Santaolalla's work will be up for an Oscar this time around. Even for as uninformed and fickle as the voting crowd can be when it comes to film music, I can't imagine a ballot that will include this title on there.
No offense to either of the composers, but this soundtrack is a pass.
