Ok, so we already reported months ago that Sigur Rós’ keyboardist Kjartan Sveinsson was hired to compose the score to Neil Jordan’s sea-nymph fairytale picture, “Ondine,” starring Colin Farrell and comely Polish actress Alicja Bachleda.
We saw the film the other night and the magical picture was one of our favorites of the festival so far (even if it’s not entirely 100% problem free; a full review hopefully soon). The score by Sveinsson was as typically, ethereal, elegiac and beautiful as you’d probably expect. In many ways, it made the film and lent it a gorgeous, romantic air perfectly in step with “Ondine”‘s wondrous fable-like qualities.
But what we were unprepared for, was just how big a certain Sigur Rós song would play in the film. A central musical motif in the picture was the swooning lullaby, “All Alright” from the Icelandic quartet’s 2008 album, Með Suð í Eyrum Við Spilum Endalaust or With a Buzz in Our Ears We Play Endlessly, as it translates into English.
Without spoiling too much, it’s sung several times by the sea nymph Bachleda and the band are even shown playing it on TV in a central reveal near the end of the film. The song itself must play, all in all, about a half a dozen times, it even has it’s own film credit, after “music by” it reads, “featuring Sigur Rós’ ‘All Alright.’ ” It’s a wonderful song, but man, in the context of the film, the visuals and music really, really soar. Anyhow, check out the song if you haven’t heard it; it’s sublime. “Ondine” doesn’t have North American distribution that we know of, but hopefully that changes once the Toronto Film Festival is all said and done.
Sigur Rós – “All Alright”