Ben Lee and Jessica Chapnik – The Square

The Square – Ben Lee and Jessica Chapnik

By Chris Peken

Last night i saw the The Square. The week before I got Gandhi out on DVD. I am pretty sure that the male characters in The Square are not proponents of Mahatma’s pacifism. People die in The Square, they aren’t necessarily meant to, but they keep doing it anyway. It is a dark, tense movie that doesn’t let up. The “soundtrack” – or “songs from and inspired by” – by Ben Lee and sung by Jessica Chapnik (from Home and Away!) is predominately the opposite. Less of the bleak yearning with violent undertones of the movie and more of the wistful, occasionally melancholy yet ultimately hopeful classic Ben Lee penned pop. Stepping away from the microphone was a smart step for Lee, as Chapnik provides a surprisingly effective instrument of interpretation, her honest rendering of Lee’s lyrics (even as she sings ‘When I’m with you, I feel like a man’) avoiding the perpetual struggle Lee seems to endure of sounding trite and sentimental. From the ripoff of Iggy Pop’s  The Passenger on the undeniably poppy Unloved Letters to the beautiful but futile Why Don’t You Come Over Chapnik provides both a foil to Lee and a relief to movie viewers in the context of what is a testosterone-fueled film. That both Ben and Jessica share the same Indian guru Narayani Amma only adds to what is a powerful story of opposites complementing and contrasting to good effect.

*** 1/2