8 Femmes (2002)

Composer(s):
Krishna Lévy

Released in:
2002

Reviews

8 mysterious women equal 1 beautiful score
by Dorian (September 26, 2005)
One of my recent pleasant discoveries, Krishna Lévy's music for the movie 8 Femmes is both a beautiful movie score and French actress memorabilia. The disc starts with the lush orchestral main theme, a tempting composition. Right after that the first (and loudest) of eight songs kicks in, "Papa t'es plus dans l'coup" with vocals by Ludivine Sagnier. All the other actresses have their songs here as well, though certainly not all of them -however good actresses they are- could probably be equally good singers. The songs are all non-original compositions (usually old French pop tunes), but of course newly recorded and with good sound quality. My favorites are the cheerful "À quoi sert de vivre libre" by Fanny Ardant and the seductive "Toi jamais" by Catherine Deneuve.
After the song selection comes the rest of the score, which lasts about 18 minutes. The cues are slowly fading one into another, but still retaining the somehow melancholic and sad atmosphere. They are orchestral except for the very last one, which is eloquently performed on solo piano. The songs were recorded in France but the score is performed by the Bulgarian Symphony Orchestra and I find the quality of the recording not as perfect as it might be. Due to this, together with the brevity of the score and the various songs interrupting the score just after its beginning I wanted to rate 8 Femmes with 4 stars. However one hearing of the theme made me give it 5, so I'm rather posting my review quickly now before I think it over again.

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