Arrival (Original Soundtrack) - Johann Johannsson (2016)
It’s unfair to talk about anything other than Johannsson to start out. He was one of the great minds of modern composition, just as at home with an orchestra as he was with a sweeping electronic soundscape. He died far too young in 2018, and we can only speculate how much more he could have given the world.
As to Arrival, the film Johannsson scored for Denis Villeneuve: don’t get me started. Arrival is one of my favorite films I’ve seen in the last few years. Sci Fi loves its time travel thought experiments, and Arrival is one of the best conceived I’ve witnessed.
Lots of “big vision” type directors have used their original screenplay films to get into the blockbuster business, often making films that are strikingly original and simultaneously not at all what any of the IP’s fans wanted. Villeneuve did almost this exact thing with the Bladerunner IP, but then cracked the code and made a Dune film that was both in line with his own vision and quite successful.
It is at heart a creepy but hope-inspiring film, and Johannsson’s score is large doses of both. We get exposition and build-up in the first two thirds (there’s a track called Escalation, ffs), followed by tense conflict. Of course, this is not a simple action movie, and even the resolution of the story comes through with grace and beauty. Johannsson nails that as well, with the final tracks being clear, lucid, and beautiful.
