3. Cloud Atlas
Composed by Tom Tykwer, Johnny Klimek, and Reinhold Heil
Few films this year so tightly incorporated music into their very DNA as Cloud Atlas, especially considering that the key composition – the “Cloud Atlas Sextet” – serves as a key thematic and narrative device. If the score – composed in part by co-director Tom Tykwer – did not live up to diegetic assertions of the music’s power, the film itself could easily fall apart, or at least fail to fulfill its full potential.
But the “Cloud Atlas Sextet” is a truly beautiful and haunting piece, one that absolutely justifies character Robert Frobisher’s claims to brilliance. The rest of the score is just as good, a miraculous emotional powerhouse built on simple progressions and instrumentation. The music augments the era-spanning emotions of the film with modesty and grace, and is, I would argue, the key element in linking six different stories, styles, and genres together into one seamless experience. I named Cloud Atlas the second-best film of 2012, and I can say with full confidence that the score, which I listen to regularly, is among the foremost components of the film’s artistic success.
2. The Secret World of Arrietty
Composed by Cécile Corbel
Hitting American shores early this year, Hiromasa Yonebayashi’s Arrietty is one of Studio Ghibli’s simplest and most profound works, a film bursting with beautiful visuals and heartfelt, emotional storytelling. Capturing the splendor of this creative animated landscape is no easy task, and yet French musician Cécile Corbel arguably outdoes the imagery in terms of sheer artistic impact.
With unique and earthy instrumentation comprised of guitars, harps, and winds, Corbel’s aural landscape is the perfect sonic equivalent of Arrietty’s wondrous world. There is such profound beauty ingrained in every second of this score, beauty that permeates even the film’s saddest and most introspective moments to remind us that there is grace in all things, whether we can see it or not – which is, of course, one of the core ideas in a film about seeing the world from a different perspective. Infused with evocative lyrics in Japanese and English as various points, Corbel’s score is never predictable, and only grows deeper, better, and more entrancing as the film moves along.
Even considering the legendary work composer Joe Hisaishi has done with Hayao Miyazaki, Corbel has still gifted Ghibli with one of the studio’s very best scores, and one of the most powerful sets of film music in years. The Arrietty score has not, sadly, been made available in America, but it can easily be imported on CD from England, Japan, and other countries, an expenditure I highly recommend.
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