Review of The Overture (2004)

In The Overture, music is presented with a towering sense of religious ferocity. The musicians are treated with intense reverence, and their music a cause worth dying for. The film is a fictionalised account that is based on the life of Thailands Luang Pradit Phairao, the last master of the ranad-ek (a classical instrument resembling a wooden xylophone). He is manifested through the central character of Sorn (primarily played by Anuchit Sapanpong), a master of the instrument that becomes a sort of Christ-like saviour to the instruments continued survival and its wielders. In a scene early on, Sorn is seen as a child feeling his way through the ranad-ek and witnessing his natural affinity with the instruments notes. Underlining the spiritual tone of the film, Sorn's prodigious talent with the ranad-ek is akin to turning water into wine and his greatest obstacle to greatness is overcoming an opponent clad in black whose mastery of the instrument literally calls forth angry winds of change. 

Sentimentally farcical, the main vein of its story understates Sorns challenges with being a phenomenon in his village and his rise through the royal court that culminates in a showdown. The secondary narrative is the weakest but holds the most promise. An elder Sorn is given a final challenge, pitting him against the countrys changing cultural pursuits and invading influences of Japan, keen to keep creative processes down to a minimum by way of bureaucracy. It is admirable in its suggestion of invoking a certain parallelism between the generations but the jarring, feckless edits that include strident political machinations with ludicrously over the top musical set pieces makes it all seem like two different films spliced together as an afterthought. 

But the endless fawning over its material is truly the films inherent predicament. It is enamoured by its own self-importance, so much so that it ignores coherency and papers over it with its single most powerful factor in its technical proficiency. Lush, full-blooded cinematography is employed throughout the proceedings and the characters are framed luminously. The dream-like aesthetics of the film can almost be used as an excuse for its lax storytelling but an ambitious and underwhelming double narrative introduced midway tarnishes any preferable possibility that the story could have been a lazy afternoons reverie.