' The Railway men's story required great drive and energy'

CHENNAI: It is early morning in northern Europe, and the composer of the recently-released series on Netflix, The Railway Men, Sam Slater makes it a point to get on a call with us. His latest work, The Railway Men that released a few days ago has won global appreciation for its technical and acting prowess. “When I first read through the script of The Railway Men, the initial understanding was that it doesn’t revolve directly around the Bhopal Gas Tragedy but about the reaction of the four main characters and their response to it as the tragedy unfolds. Also, that doesn’t disregard the tragedy or the course of the storytelling. It is about these primary characters and how they stepped up,” begins Sam.

As the work for the series progressed, he tells us that he understood the magnanimity of the project and the energy that is required to go about the process. “Shiv (Creator of the series) and I realised how much more drive, and energy the sound world and the score would require in order to do justice to the story,” he says. Sam was also the music producer for Chernobyl. Even as we begin to talk about the series that is based on the nuclear disaster, Sam smiles, “I understand the connection that would be made with Chernobyl but I looked at this as a completely fresh opportunity.”

The series has been ranked number 3 on Netflix’s Global Non-English TV List and is trending over 30 countries. Sam says that the team did not anticipate such a huge success. “God, no!,” he laughs. “Shiv and I talked about this a lot. If you read something and you find the potential in it, you follow your stomach. At a point in time, we didn’t think beyond making good work. Commercial success isn’t the way to make a story or a music. In England, we say, ‘Cream rises’, and not worry about the milk. Just make the cream. Our approach to The Railway Men was something similar,” adds the composer.

Having worked with leading storytellers across the world, Sam believes that he has a lot to learn from the Indian film world. “I loved trying to understand the incredibly rich cinematic culture existing here. As an Englishman, I loved the way stories are being told here. For instance, an English filmmaker wouldn’t like a song in the middle of the drama and we did that with The Railway Men because Shiv knew the necessity of it. I loved such challenges and being receptive to it as well. When I open up to such things, I use an entirely different device of storytelling and it is beautiful,” he opens up.

Sam explains that such collaborations have been possible with the surge of OTT content since the beginning of the lockdown in 2020. “People have been receptive to watching a lot of content with subtitles or overdubbed shows, which has given an opportunity for someone like me in northern Europe to work with an Indian filmmaker. There is some great content that is being made but there is lots of average content too that we have been consuming,” he remarks.

Ask him if it is always music in the house as his spouse Hildur Guonadottir is known for her work as a composer in Chernobyl, Joker and Women Talking among others. “We decided to collaborate on everything. It is beautiful to share this abstract thing we call music. It is more beautiful when it is a conversation between two people rather than one talking about it and another not understanding it at all,” he says.

Sam is currently working on projects based in Finland and hasn’t signed any projects from India. “I have been coming to India for the last 10 years and I would be open to connecting with anyone through my email. But during my time in India, we were looking at a few works for research purposes and that is when Shiv showed me works by RD Burman. That music is mindblowing. There was a guy sitting in a room playing his synthesiser, which looked simple yet characterful. That will be my favourite,” he tells us and heads for his breakfast.