Rafiq Bhatia picks 4 movies to pair with ‘Environments’
In Pairings, artists and creators pick the movies that complement their latest work.
Rafiq Bhatia is a musician, composer, guitarist, and producer best known for being part of the experimental rock band Son Lux, who composed the Academy Award-nominated soundtrack for Everything Everywhere All at Once and for Thunderbolts*. His latest solo album Environments is out on September 12.
We asked Rafiq to pick a few movies that pair well with Environments.
Memoria (2021)
It’s hard for me to think about the music on Environments without acknowledging Apichatpong Weerasethakul, whose films seem to employ natural sound more effectively and narratively than most scores. Also, the way Memoria seems to somehow mount in intensity as it becomes slower—and quieter—is something I think I’ll always take with me.
I had the opportunity to collaborate with Apichatpong a few years ago on a piece called On Blue—so far, it has only been presented as a live performance of music paired with film, but I hope one day a recording might come to exist. On my first viewing of what Apichatpong had created, the beautiful intentionality of each sound was so evident. It inspired me to design each musical gesture to emerge from and recede back into the natural sound environment of the film. In the piece, birds and jungle sounds become soloists in the ensemble, and the line between the instruments on stage and the sounds from the screen melts away. To me, this experience feels like it helped catalyze the season of work I’ve been in ever since.
One of the beautiful observations Apichatpong shared with me: “Silence is never repeated.”
Mirror (1975)
I saw Mirror for the first time somewhat recently and was completely awestruck in every way. Tarkovsky seems to understand the varying levels of consciousness so well, working from a place of deep engagement with his own memory but in a manner that feels wholly dreamlike and impossible to pin down. This film feels like a dream, or like a journey deep into nature—I can recall beautiful feelings, sounds, and images, but I would struggle to recount or explain basic aspects of the plot.
I should mention also that a big inspiration during the process of creating Environments was the late great Ryuichi Sakamoto’s album async, which was originally conceived of as a score to an imaginary Tarkovsky film.
Perfect Days (2023)
Another film I experienced relatively recently that is just gorgeous and glacial, reconnecting the viewer with the speed at which time actually moves (as opposed to the frenetically subdivided pace we experience in modern life). The humility and softness of the film’s protagonist, and the way we experience his own appreciation of the seemingly mundane details of his life—it reflects an attunement to things that matter, and those that last. Aspirational.
Spirited Away (2001)
It’s been years since I’ve seen it, but Miyazaki’s dreamlike depiction of the natural world in this film lingers on in my mind and, now that I think about it, surely influenced my new album. I love how the environments are filled with uncertainty; nature seems to have a mind of its own. The way the landscapes grow strange, unsettling or downright dangerous at times makes the more tranquil moments feel extra serene by contrast. Also… we have a long-running joke that my dear brother-in-sound Ian Chang (also of Son Lux, who plays drums on Environments) is actually Kaonashi (No Face) because he eats so much!