Given the usual standard, sometimes exceptional, and now more often than not workmanlike exercises in Irish actor Liam Neeson’s silver fox brand of action hero bad-assery, one can take his seemingly near constant films for granted. But then like some thunderbolt, a Neeson movie like “In the Land of Saints & Sinners” arrives to show that this old pro has still more than got it – while at the same time excitingly introducing a fresh musical face – and in this case three of them for the Baldenweg family of brothers Diego, Lionel and sister Nora. Hailing from Switzerland and raised in Australia with genes headlined by a musician father, the Baldenwegs deliver a knockout score for Neeson’s best film in many years, as set in his home country. While Ireland and Northern Ireland have known relative peace for quite a while, this 70’s set picture goes back to a time known as The Troubles. Yet the bloody civil war seems an island apart for the relatively quiet county where Neeson’s hitman Finbar is reaching the end of practicing his trade in secret. But what’s happening across the border comes roaring into his vicinity when hellcat IRA member Doireann (Kerry Condon) and her band flee there after a botched bombing. When Finbar takes care of her onerous child abusing brother, it sets the stage for fateful vengeance that turns the town into a war zone.
“In the Land of Saints and Sinners” is exceptionally directed by Clint Eastwood producer-turned-director Robert Lorenz (“Talent for the Game”) who’s also notched a Neeson picture with “The Marksman.” And like the long tradition of Irish films, whether they involve Liam Neeson or John Wayne, this “Land” speaks for its special nature, particularly in the beautiful, elegiac scoring by the Baldenwegs who take to the Gaelic musical tradition like siblings to the green manor-pub born. At once singing with immediately identifiable ethnic instruments and lush symphonic arrangements, the score also doesn’t deny a dark religious sensibility that’s led brothers and sisters to destruction. Yet in its rich themes, it’s empathetic to Finbar’s hero of sorts who’s carried out the dire, time-counting body planting tasks, even painting the villains in emotional colors that doesn’t deny the very black humor at hand. But perhaps most striking about the Baldenwegs’ approach is the harmonica and guitar which could easily place this “Land” in Man with No Name Spain-shot Spaghetti territory, conveying a powerful sense of an inevitable, explosive showdown where Neeson will get to deliver what audiences have come for. But here it’s with astonishingly thematic emotion, no more so than when the Baldenwegs come to town with their particular set of skills for one of the year’s best films and scores so far that’s sure to make a mark by its end.
(L-R, Lionel, Nora and Diego Baldenweg)
Did you all discover music at the same time? And what made you want to be composers, let alone unite?
We all discovered music at a very early age as we grew up in a music and art surrounding. As teenagers Diego was already composing classical music on the piano, Nora was singing, and Lionel was drumming for Australian punk-thrash bands. At some point we formed a blues-punk band together with our parents. After several years of giving live concerts, recording, and doing press and TV shows we eventually decided to leave the spotlight and become a music team working in the background.
How does your collaboration work? And do you think it makes it easier or harder given that you are family? What do you think makes you similar, and different as musicians?
Our collaboration is kind of similar to the band days. Having three different characters, talents and strengths and music taste we unite to bring out the best of each strength as a team. Diego is the main composer starting and finishing the creative and technical composing side of our job which we further develop together as co-composers, while Lionel also keeps our creative vision together and represents our team towards our clients and the project teams. Nora brings her ideas at different stages of the composing process and very importantly brings a strong female perspective to our results. Working as a family happened naturally and we see each other as partners in crime helping each other. After working together for such a long time, we luckily still have very different and strong opinions.
How did you come up with the team name of Great Garbo?
Great Garbo is not our team name. We used this name as our record label in the band days and it eventually became the name of our production company. In advertising we are credited with GREAT GARBO but in film and TV we go by our personal artist name.
What kind of training ground were commercials for you to lead into film and television?
Working on almost 400 different commercials, for different creatives around the world gave us the best training in work discipline, musical versatility, client expectations and staying focused and creative in high pressure situations. We also learnt to kill our darlings and find solutions with many different opinionated collaborators.
I believe your first feature scores together were for “The Last Touch” and “The Little Witch,” which couldn’t be more disparate in their stories given that one film is about dementia and the other a sweet fantasy.
There were a few other features we had scored before that. The good thing about scoring for movies that are not world famous is that you don’t get categorised for a music style. If we are lucky, we might be able to continue to wear different composing hats and build a reputation as a versatile composer team.
You’d return to the theme of dementia, but this time with your first English language score for “Head Full of Honey.” What made this film and your music different?
When Til Schweiger reached out to us we were very intrigued to work with such a master of his work. He studied our musical past better than most people that we meet, and he was very specific about what he likes about our compositions and what he doesn’t. As an example, he really loved our emotional and manipulative music in the global DOVE campaign. He asked us to read the new script, watch the original movie (“Honig im Kopf”) and then spend several weeks composing tracks based up on this inspiration and the briefing he gave us. During the edit he would simply integrate our suitable tracks into his film but there was no working on a specific scene moment. So, it was a very different experience but in no doubt a respectful collaboration.
Your music appeared on the Netflix youthful identical twin science fiction show “The Unlisted.” Tell us about that experience.
The Australian producers Polly Staniford (“Berlin Syndrome”) and Academy Nominee Angie Fielder (“Lion”) had us on their radar and they’ve been following our diverse work for a couple of years. Knowing that we didn’t have any experience working on an international TV series yet, they were still sure about our musical talent and wanted to bring us on board their first Netflix production. There was still a music supervisor, showrunner and a setup director who also suggested composers. So, after a little pitch the team were unanimous in their decision – of the 5 composers they asked to pitch, they said that our music and ideas were by far the most original and memorable. Our music ideas also helped the process in the writing room and they even played it during the casting process.
Director Robert Lorenz
How were you brought together for “In the Land of Saints and Sinners?” And what struck you about the movie and director Robert Lorenz’s approach to it?
We were introduced to Robert Lorenz a while back, even before the movie was shot and we had a great talk about many things – talking music was a small part of the discussion. When the movie was coming together, he remembered this talk and asked the producers to get us on board during the final script phase. This gave us the chance to compose on a script level. And during the shoot we received the dailies which gave us more inspiration. When the editor started the assembly, we already had a lot of music to work with and as there was no temp music needed, so this score naturally became very unique and original. Robert Lorenz also loved the idea of us composing different memorable themes that would vary in style and tempo throughout the film. He also loved the idea of using our dad “Pfuri Baldenweg” to play the harmonica as a kind of signature sound next to the sweeping symphonic orchestra.
What do you think made this film different from other pictures about “The Troubles?” and how did that influence your direction?
The film didn’t want to dig deep into “the troubles” so it was clear from the beginning that we would focus on a character-based movie with thriller elements, a Western feel, the 70’s era and the Irish surrounding.
Tell us about the “Irish” approach to your score. What instruments and orchestrations particularly strike you about the locale?
We drew inspiration from 17th century harpist and composer Turlough O’Carolan for his direct and nostalgic approach. Also, from The Chieftains for their “bandy” sound and their use of multiple instruments playing the same melody together, like the mandolin, guitar, bass, bodhran or the fiddle. Further we studied and implemented typical Irish/Celtic scales and searched for ways to creatively break out of these limited notes by finding new melody and harmony combinations.
How did you want to get inside the head of Finbar and reflect on the toll that his hitman vocation has taken on him?
For this we created the Finbar theme based on Irish scales and developed it for his pivotal moments of change throughout the film. It was about giving him an Irish flavor and a theme with different instrumentations to underline his diverse facets. The first time we hear his theme is when he is on his way to another assassination job. It’s rather pulsating and western-y. In the aftermath he gets the same melody on a more pensive and sweeping matter. The next time the melody plays very vibrant and positively when he decides to start a new and good life.
Doireann is certainly one of the more strikingly vengeful villains we’ve seen in a while. How did you want to musically give her character dimension beyond her single-minded quest for revenge?
Being part of the IRA group of terrorists her theme was directly coming from the antagonist theme. With the same approach as with Liam Neeson’s character Finbar. Kerry Condon’s role as Doireann is a fierce one yet there are a few moments of reflection and tenderness throughout the movie. For her and the IRA group we created a 5-note motif. It’s instantly recognisable for example at the start of the movie. Played low, slow, and creeping. Sometimes it just plays as a second voice, plucked quickly in the background. For her most reflective moments though, we decided on the movie’s general theme to plant her thoughts and her being into an integral part of the Irish landscape.
Though it’s chilling, there’s also a lot of humor to the film, especially in Finbar’s relationship with the local constable and a young hitman Turk. How did you want to capture that charm in a way that wouldn’t conflict with the suspense?
This happened through the great acting. The fun moments were usually left without music. We elevated pensive, tense, and brutal moments. We did not want to jeopardize and double the authenticity of the light moments.
Conversely, how did you want to convey the elegiac sadness of a civil war that’s happening just out of reach of this small county – much like the situation of “The Banshees of Inisherin” in a way?
Thanks to the great cast, the elegiac sadness was already written into the faces of the characters. We scored the tension and the motivation of the characters developments.
How did you come up with the “Spaghetti Western” approach to the score? Was that a genre you were well versed in, and why do you think that sound works so well here given the Irish setting?
In many ways the movie can be seen as a Western and we loved the idea of using the harmonica. But having seen many “Spaghetti Westerns” in the past we certainly didn’t just want to copy that era. As it’s easy to fall into the maudlin trap when composing Irish music, so it is also easy to fall into the cliché trap of worn-out Western rip offs. To go a step further, we tried to bring in the Irish and Western knowledge and further develop it as if we had already been Irish and Western composers all our life. We also wanted to use the harmonica in a much more modern way with many different playing techniques and interpretations.
On that note, without emulating his music, there’s a real Ennio Morricone vibe to the fatefully impactful drama of the orchestra here.
Thank you, this probably comes from the 70’s approach we took with the orchestra. We certainly love the musical foundations that Morricone has given to the world. Perhaps, if he was still amongst us, he would have also enjoyed working with our dad, playing so many different facets on the harmonica that have never been used in the Western genre before.
The chorus comes in late in the score. Did you want to use them to give a particular religious resonance to the score given “the troubles” nature of Protestant versus Catholic?
Yes, since the motivations are also religiously driven, we felt that combining the Irish melody with the Western harmonica and the religious choir pretty much summed up that scene in a symbolic way.
Tell us about drawing the characters together to the pub, and musically staging the big showdown there.
The music playing during the showdown is a variation of the opening sequence. The same melodies get played but opposed to the intro we now have a crunching harmonica rhythm representing Finbar’s mission and grinding along the terrorist’s motivations. It’s the most lethal moment in the film but instead of scoring the action, we aimed for a more monumental overall music where everything clashes.
Where people tend to take Liam’s usually well-done action films for granted, this is one of his best reviewed movies in years, and your music has gotten particular recognition. What’s that like for you, and what land do you hope that takes you to?
We are very happy to read the many great reviews of the film and we are also kind of surprised and very honored that so many film critics have favorably mentioned our score even though music is usually never mentioned in film reviews.
Watch “In the Land of Saints & Sinners” on VOD HERE (and on Blu Ray May 28th), and listen to the Baldenwegs’ score on Sony Music HERE
Visit the Baldenwegs website HERE
Special thanks to Sarah Roche at White Bear PR