Beyond Rangoon (Hans Zimmer)

Today marks the 30th anniversary of Hans Zimmer’s finest score, Beyond Rangoon (1995). Part blissful nature poem, part skillful depiction of spirituality and redemption.

John Boorman’s Beyond Rangoon premiered in Cannes on May 24, 1995, as part of the official selection (the Palme d’Or was eventually won by Emir Kusturica’s Underground). Despite the nomination, the film received mixed reviews and was not a financial success. It did, however, expose the turbulent situation of Burma to western audiences to such a degree that the military junta (temporarily) freed Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi from house arrest.

But the film should not be reduced to a political tool; it is – in fact – a superbly crafted, sensous escape thriller from an experienced director who manages to merge micro with macro, personal with contextual. At the center of the plot is US tourist Laura (Patricia Arquette) who travels with her sister Andy (Frances McDormand) to Burma to get away from a deep trauma. Instead, she encounters a country falling apart at the seams, and finds herself involuntarily caught up in the 8888 uprising.

The film is a masterclass in mirroring. The fractured political situation of Burma; the repressed population’s strive for freedom and justice, is mirrored in Laura’s mental state. The buddhist ideas and ideologies that appear throughout the film are mirrored in Laura’s own, spiritual journey. These mirrorings are further underlined by stark contrast – the exotic beauty of the country and its peoples ravaged by the darkest corners of human behaviour.

Hans Zimmer rises to the challenge with a score that is heartfelt, harrowing and unifying all at once, created at the perfect junction in time: Firstly, he’s had almost 15 years of experience as a film composer at this point, entering the assignment with a combination of maturity and youthful vigour. Secondly, the charmingly tactile and analogue synth tech sits alongside the new digital (or at least sounds that way) at the perfect crossroads. And thirdly, his mode of composition is thematic and ethereal, coming off of power anthem scores like Black Rain and Crimson Tide (the latter released just a week prior), but also beautiful ethnic excursions like A World Apart, The Lion King and K2. All of this is channeled into Beyond Rangoon.

Roughly speaking, the score consists of two major themes that are varied throughout the film, and that combine organically with each other to capture the Burma-Laura connection.

First is the goosebump-inducing “Burma theme”, heard over the opening titles as the camera pans slowly across the Irrawaddy river to find a boat with Laura and her sister approaching a tourist sight («Waters of Irrawaddy» on the soundtrack album). Cinematographer John Seale captures the lush scenery in a sunny haze. This theme connotes the country’s internal strive for freedom, as well as its external beauty. It consists of a broad, pastoral melody on pan flute (performed hauntingly by Richard Harvey), underlined by a countermelody on watery percussion that bears the hallmark of monks, monasteries and meditation – all wrapped in a gorgeous, Vangelis-like synth blanket.

One of its most consonant statements is when Laura finds herself in a Rangoon demonstration, and sees Ang San Suu Kyi stand up against the armed militia; trepidatious flutes and low register rumblings give way to a therapeutic release of the theme as a trembling soldier lets the iconic figure pass through.

So embedded is this theme in the fictional universe that, at one point, it’s even sung diegetically by a woman as a lullaby for her baby, as if it were a folk song (maybe it’s based on one, I don’t know).

The other major theme is the “trauma theme”. It appears early on, as we’re introduced to a flashback sequence showing Laura’s husband and son brutally murdered in a home invasion. This descending, supremely melancholic theme is realized primarily through Carmen Daye’s wordless vocal and encapsulates both the tragedy and the memory of Laura’s loved ones – appearing as reminders throughout the film.

These two themes make up the bulk of the score. Harmonically and tonally, the Burma theme and the trauma theme are related, often segueing in and out of each other throughout the film, as Laura’s past becomes one with Burma’s present.

For example, the trauma theme is heard as Laura talks about her past to the local professor guide, but transforms into the Burma theme as the conversation turns spiritual. Similarly, the trauma theme is performed on flutes rather than wordless vocal as Laura walks up to a Buddha statue the next day, thereby binding the two themes closer together via instrumentation. Whilst on a river raft, the Burma theme naturally turns into the trauma theme as Laura tends to the professor’s gun wounds.

In one of the film’s more moving moments, Laura sees an apparition of her dead son, telling her to let him go. As his image evaporates in front of her, the trauma theme magically turns from minor mode to major mode, finally allowing a sense of relief and redemption.

Towards the end of the film, as Laura and the professor take a group of refugees across the Thai border, the Burma theme once again grows to full force, now representing the spirit of the country as it lives on in newfound freedom.

Interspersed between these two themes are minor, secondary themes or rhythmically based suspense cues that showcase Zimmer’s skill as a synth programmer. Chase and suspense scenes contain fragments of the themes, often a two-note motif that increases in intensity, various rhytmical patterns, slight modulations or tentative, abstract unease, as in the tense scene where Laura sneaks into an occupied river village in search of antibiotics («Village Under Siege»). Still, the flutes, percussion and programmed strings all connect to the two major themes.

When assembling the 39-minute soundtrack album, Zimmer opted for a beautiful, conceptual approach. The Burma theme and trauma theme appear with periodic intervals, while the interstitial material binds them together in shorter and longer suite tracks. A good example is the last, 10-minute title track, or the 9-minute «I Dreamt I Woke Up», co-written by Nick Glennie-Smith and with an odd title that no doubt pays homage to John Boorman’s 1991 short film by the same name (which again concerns the influence of his home area on his authorship). It’s also somehow fitting as a commentary on the dream-like trance of the protagonist, or the nightmarish horrors inflicted upon natural beauty.

While this may frustrate certain fans who want all of the music, in the film’s order, I consider it a major plus. Album curation like this is a dying artform. The score is given an alternative life as a purely musical nature poem, separated from the narrative specificity and political backdrop of the film. As an album, Beyond Rangoon is one of the finest New Age entries of all time (a sub genre that has been unfairly ridiculed and maligned over the years). It beautifully captures sunsets, ferns, rivers, insects and fertile fields in broad, impressionistic colours (mostly on synths and flutes), and similarly a deep sense of spirituality through the always rewarding east-meets-west melody lines and instrumentation choices. That has always been my main takeaway from the score.

Hans Zimmer would go on to explore similar topical ideas a couple of years later, in Terrence Malick’s The Thin Red Line (1998) – once again supreme natural beauty savaged by the terrors of war – and while the more mature, minimalist approach gave that film its poetic and profound value, I always come back to Beyond Rangoon for its unadulterated, more overt and melodic approach to the material.

Since it’s so intrinsically tied to a specific period in time – the mid 90s – when both Zimmer and film music at large adhered to certain affectionate modes, I was convinced I would never hear these stylings from the composer again. Imagine my delight and surprise, then, when I heard them make a cameo (sort of) in a couple of tracks from 2023’s The Creator. It warms my heart to know it’s not an extinct part of his repertoire.

I don’t know what Hans Zimmer himself thinks of the score. He never speaks about it in interviews, and it has never featured in any of his concerts. But whenever there is a poll about favourite Zimmer scores in film music forums, it always seems to make the cut. Bizarrely, it seems to be both underrated and well-appreciated at the same time. For me, however, there was never any doubt:

Beyond Rangoon is Hans Zimmer’s masterpiece.

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Note: The Spotify link may not work in certain regions.