Review Summary: A fantastic soundtrack imploring many different tribal elements and Western modern movie soundtrack elements in a satisfying emotional journey.
On Earth as It is in Heaven. That track says it all about this soundtrack. And the first cue is the main reason to buy the soundtrack. It's a beautiful theme that has a great choir, Indian instruments, and some great violin playing. It's just a piece that is beautifully constructed.
Then there's the track "Falls" which is very pretty. It is very nice cue with lots of great melody played on some interesting harmony. "Gabriel's Oboe" is another great track, and is a very pretty oboe piece. "Ave Maria Guarani" is a beautiful choir cue that is just beautiful. It's brings old church songs to your mind. "Brothers" is a good cue that has guitar and flute playing that helps describe the type of relationship between the two main characters.
"Vita Nostra" in the movie is the first appearance of a wonderful motif that I can't really label. But's it's pretty and is built upon later in "The River" and in "On Earth as it is in Heaven" It's a nice theme that works well and while its a moving piece it also has a sorrow to it that fits well with the subject its portraying. "The Mission" is a nice cue that uses the 'Falls' theme continued in better detail.
"River" is another outstanding edition of the motif experience before in "Vita Nostra" this one is a little better though. "Te Deum Gurani" is another piece like "Ave Maria" it's a little different. But it's very pretty. Then comes the battle scences that includes some great Indian instrumentation by a group called Incantation. Incantation members included Tony Hinnigan(Scottish), Mike Taylor (Irish), Forbes Henderson (English), Simon Rogers (English), Chris Swithinbank, and Chileans Claudia Figuerora, Sergio Avila and Mauricio Venegas. They play traditional tribal and other South American music.
This music of course works perfectly since the setting is somewehere in the Amazon jungles near Peru. The main highlights of this group performance here are "Ascunsion", "Gurani", and "The Sword" which has "Gabriel's Oboe" in it with a twist. And "Miserere" is just plain sad. You have to listen to "On Earth as It is in Heaven" one more time, because in the movie it is actually is after "Miserere" in the movie.
A must have for any soundtrack lover!
