The Violinist is an animated film about a woman searching for her long-lost love after being separated during World War II. She was a violinist, so her music is a major piece of the story. Ricky Ho, one of two composers along with Isabel Latorre, said he toiled over the beginning of the film’s signature piece, “Sunset Sonata.”
“It’s not an easy piece to come up with,” Ho said. “It has to be very special, especially the first few notes. Maybe the first two months I write, put aside, take it back, change some notes. In the end, I find these four notes are the perfect notes for the film.”
Co-directors Ervin Han and Raúl García joined Ho on the panel at Deadline’s Contenders Film Los Angeles panel Saturday. While the score could be added to the film later, they actually needed to know what notes he was composing as a plot point.
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“We had this back-and-forth because Ricky was composing his music,” García said. “There are scenes where characters write the notes of the sonata.”
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“Sunset Sonata” connects the leads of the film as their lives drive them apart. Much of the film involves the Japanese occupation of Singapore.
“It represents their connection, their love together,” Ho said. “This piece of music is really important throughout the film.”
The epic story also encompasses epic emotions.
“We are melodrama, and we’re proud of it,” García said. “We need to cry from time to time, and this movie helps you.”
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Han said he was influenced by the Hong Kong melodramas of the ’80s. He saw them with his parents in theaters and understood their catharsis looking back as an adult.
“They would quietly weep in the corner,” Han said. “We embrace that sincerity.”
Likewise, Han shared some frustrations with being questioned on animating the film. As a filmmaker, he just thinks of animation as a way to tell certain stories.
“Animation has a different contract with the audience,” Han said. “The fact that it’s not real, that it’s drawn, opens up a lot to personal memories, personal life experience, to bring it to the emotion. In many ways, you surrender emotion more readily to it.”
García said animation served The Violinist for both aesthetic and budgetary reasons.
“Animation and especially 2D animation, they have this quality of timelessness,” he said. “The movement is stylized. The artwork is beautiful and really takes you to the place much easier than you try to do this live action. There won’t be money in the world to actually make it in live action because of the scope of the story.”
Check back Monday for the panel video.