The Soundtrack Is The Fourth Character

Rating: 10/10 (10 May 2016)

Many times, the soundtrack of a movie will be described as a separate character, a unique presence in a movie that operates with its own set of acting and performance skills. This is exemplified by Bear McCreary's fantastic soundtrack here.
The soundtrack works fully as an omniscient point of view, in which a narrator knows the thoughts and feelings of all of the characters in the story. McCreary uses his well-developed arsenal of musical devices to predict and react to the action in this movie, but at the same time sticks with the simple, haunting theme.
Sometimes soundtracks can be obnoxious and intrusive, but this one dovetails so well into the story it is a fourth character, equally as dazzling as the other three performers. Certainly, Bear's experience with video game soundtracks, as well as his studies with composer Elmer Bernstein, himself a composer of hundreds of film scores, has provided us with a textbook version of what a soundtrack can do.