Hear My Eyes: Pan’s Labyrinth X Sleep D

As I climbed the seemingly endless stairs of the Hindley Street Music Hall, I could feel the anticipation of a full house. Hear My Eyes:Pan’s Labyrinth X Sleep D is a one night event featuring the Guillermo del Toro’s horror masterpiece augmented with a new score by Sleep D.

Pan's Labyrinth is a fairy tale about the importance of moral disobedience and is set five years after the end of the Spanish Civil War. Eleven-year-old Ofelia comes face to face with the terrors of fascism when she and her pregnant mother are relocated to the countryside, where her new stepfather, a sadistic captain in General Francisco Franco’s army, hunts down Republican guerrillas refusing to give up the fight.

The violent reality in which Ofelia lives merges perfectly with her mystical interior world when she meets a faun in a decaying labyrinth and is set on a strange, epic journey that is at once terrifying and beautiful.

Del Toro’s film is an award-winning masterpiece. I wondered how the film could be improved, even with a new score?

Hear My Eyes have presented live score projects across Australia, such as No Country for Old Men x Tropical F*ck Storm and Suspiria x King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard. For this screening they have added electronic musicians, Hektor and RBI to complete the ensemble.

The film has a dark palette skilfully matched by Sleep D. From the first ominous rumblings, they prove they can make music to equal if not often surpass the original score by Javier Navarrette. This score has the perfect balance, augmenting every mood, always complimenting, never distracting. The lower passages seem to vibrate the entire theatre.

On a side note, they are to be commended for playing in such dark conditions to ensure there was no light bleed onto the film screen.

While I loved the idea of a film and band combining to make a new piece, the uncomfortable, narrow chairs of the venue plus the late start made it difficult at times to enjoy the 2 hours 10 mins running time and I imagine the audience members who had other shows to attend that evening would have been running late.

Nevertheless, Hear My Eyes: Pan’s Labyrinth X Sleep D is an experience for the senses, and its images and sounds will live in your memory long after the event!

Barry Hill OAM

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