Convento
ABOUT THE CONVENTO SCORE
“Clearly, Alterman knows how to photograph and edit, and his collaboration with musician Lawrence Dolan cannot be understated—it’s an excellent sonic expression of the element of sci-fi naturalism that defines Christiaan’s work.” - Mike Tully, A Hammer to Nail Review - Filmmaker Magazine
“The music score is sublime.”- Austin Daze
“Lawrence Dolan’s score blends with sounds from nature and the sculptures themselves, immersing the audience in a world that’s both alien and intriguing.” - Victoria Large, notcoming.com
“With a hypnotic original score and long, slow tracking shots, CONVENTO indulges the viewer with a wide-eyed view of the Zwanikken family’s extraordinary everyday life.” - Kristina Aikens, Independent Film Festival of Boston.
“Alterman’s beautifully shot ‘Convento’ offers a look into the wildly captivating world of the Zwankkens. Lawrence Dolan’s dissonant and ethereal score emphasizes the landscape of contrasts present at the convent…” - Noah Lee, Film Threat.
While I was a member of the band Resonator, Jarred Alterman became a fan of our music. I had shared much of the music I had recorded with the band with Jarred and he began using album tracks and outtakes in some of his short films.
In his search for the right music for Convento he discussed with me my thoughts about the film and what would work for the score. I suggested that the music should interpret the synthetic and organic elements of Christian’s art to enhance the experience of the film as an extension of his art as well as life at the Convento. This caught Jarred’s interest, but he was curious to see how this would be accomplished and asked me to provide a couple of examples.
Early in the film, Christiaan suggests that the Convento resonates ancient frequencies and that, as an artist, he merely captures these frequencies and reinterprets them through his work. Using this thought as the central foundation for the score, I chose my instrumentation.
To my mind, capturing the modern interpretation of ancient frequencies seemed fairly straightforward. I created various synth pads and recordings of modern machinery to use in a musical context. Furthermore, to augment the synthesis of the organic and mechanical in Christiaan’s art, I selected a guitar with an alternate open tuning to accompany the synths. However, I felt there was a foundation that was missing–I wanted something that represented the ancient frequencies in their most fundamental form.
Many years ago at a Tibetan store on Martha’s Vineyard, I was introduced to the hand made singing bowls used by Buddhist monks for meditation and prayer. The purity of tone that emminated from these bowls was hypnotic to me. When I spoke with the Tibetan man that ran the store, he explained to me that the monks believed the tones that came from the bowls where the fundamental sound or voice of the universe. Remembering this experience, I realized I had my fundamental instrument.
I had one bowl which I had purchased on Martha’s Vineyard, but I knew I would need more than a single tone. Fortunately, there was a Tibetan store in downtown Plattsburgh, just a 10 minute drive from my studio. There I spent a few hours with the owner, Tenzin Dorjee, choosing the bowls with the tones that would best suit the mood of the score.
After hearing the initial demos, Jarred was extremely excited. I began composing and recording the score in late July 2010 and completed the majority of it by the end of August. Through September and October we made some small adjustments, changes, and revisions. In November the film made its world premier at the Camerimage Festival in Poland and in March it premiered inNorth America at the South by Southwest Film Festival.
ABOUT THE MOVIE
Convento is more than a film to watch. Convento is a film immersion. At the convergence of the rivers Oeiras and Guadiana, along what some believe to be a ley line possessing mystical energies, rises the four hundred year old monastery Sao Francisco. Its light earthen walls, marked by the sun and time, house a labyrinth of terraces, courtyards, gardens and fountains, all offering secret places to contemplate. An ancient irrigation system delivers water throughout, a silvery artery connecting all life. The monastery is surrounded by a surrealist storybook landscape, an amalgam of desert palms and cacti and a forest’s darker, cooler life, within which animals of all kinds secretly contemplate. Originally built for an abbot and twelve monks, it is now a home, nature preserve, and artist’s studio. Click HERE to read more.
