Pan's Labyrinth (Original Soundtrack)

iTunes Review

The 2007 Academy Award nominations argued that film scoring is not only popular music's most eclectic genre, but its most internationally diverse as well. Joining Americans Philip Glass (Notes On a Scandal) and Thomas Newman (The Good German) in the honors were Frenchman Alexandre Desplat (The Queen), Argentine Gustavo Santaolalla (Babel) and Spaniard Javier Navarette for this music to Guillermo Del Toro's masterful parallel-world fantasy. The composer contrasts the film's unsettling aura with spare orchestral music that more often than not evokes a sort of wondrous, weary melancholy. Using a breathy, wordless lullaby to introduce a theme whose permutations become the score's musical axis, it initially recalls Morricone's early '70s dabblings in the horror genre, but quickly develops a distinct character and delicate touch all its own, especially in its darkest — and most glorious — corners. Director Del Toro may have ultimately omitted swaths of Navarette's score from the film's final cut, but he's wisely insured its full release here, a fitting honor for the composer's first Oscar nod.