Documentary Score Supports a Moving Journey

In the documentary, For the Living (2024), a group of cyclists participate in a moving journey retracing the movements of Holocaust survivor Marcel Zielinski’s 60-mile journey from Auschwitz to Krakow.  The “Ride for the Living” reflects on that journey and man’s ability to dehumanize people.  The film was shown at several festivals last year and had a limited November release.  The score is from Daniel Alcheh (The Tattooed Torah; The Trouble With Bliss).

“Liberation Path” gets things off nicely with a piano theme that bubbles along with a simple 5-note motive.  The pattern is varied in its direction which adds a bit of poignancy, further enhanced by warm string writing.  A bit more dissonance is added to “Questions” and “Rwanda” which are early moments of tension-building music.  This is alongside other stunningly beautiful music for tracks such as “Old Krakow” (“Ride Dinner”; or the beautiful violin line in “Bosnia”).  Some of the ambient effects provide an ethereal quality in “Meeting Marcel”, with more electronic elements gradually appearing more prominently in “Modern Krakow”.  The brief tracks throughout provide slight touches to add an emotional depth, or push the narrative forward.  “Less Than Human” creates a sense of darkness with its low strings and a harp line that adds a bit of hopefulness.  From slowly unfolding reflective beauty, to more dissonance, Alcheh’s score helps guide to listener to the gentler realizations.  There is a sort of cautious exploration of the instrumental choices and motivic development that creates good dramatic flow.  There are slight ethnic musical colors as well, including a female vocalise which first appears in “People Like Us” (and later in “Vietnam”).  The music becomes more austere and diffuse when needed (“Gassed”) and even has a pop-ish disco beat for the delightful “Change” (“Liberated”).  After traversing through the darker meditative elements of the score, these lighter final tracks begin to provide a sense of overcoming this darkness and celebrate the human spirit (“End of the Ride”; “Gifts”).

For the Living features a variety of approaches wrapped around primary motivic ideas that then morph naturally as the score moves along. In the intense moments, the music makes its turn into small motives or percussive effects briefly, still keeping strong harmonic support.  This makes for an engaging listen as the primary thematic ideas are engaging and help pull things together.