Ik was het Niet - Het verhaal van Laila B
Matthijs Kieboom
" introverted but captivating score "Written by Joep de Bruijn - Review of the music as heard in the movie
Ik was het Niet - Het Verhaal van Laila B (It Wasn't Me - The Story of Laila B, 2026) is a Dutch documentary about Laila Bertheussen, the wife of Norwegian right-wing Minister of Justice Tor Mikkel Wara, who was accused and sentenced for intimidation and assault against her own husband.
Director Stefanie de Brouwer approached her film with an open mind, seeing Bertheussen as a human being, showing multifaceted sides of her, but without hurting the person she portrays. It intersperses interviews with Bertheussen, footage of her interrogation, trial, news items, and current-day life 'overcoming' all that befell her, now divorced from her husband, fabricating artistic handbags as a means of expressing her progression.
Matthijs Kieboom was drawn creating original music. Over the years, he has impressed with a multitude of scores for various media, including documentaries. They are wildly different, from the impressive orchestral music of Wild op de Veluwe to the more introverted music for last year's De Verkrotte Droom.
Ik was het Niet - Het Verhaal van Laila B uses very specific sound design, including strings, cello, electronics, piano, a female wordless vocal, and more for an introverted but captivating score.
Early on in the film, the director asks Laila if she has been able to forgive herself, which Bertheussen did not like - she was infuriated -and refused to answer. Yet, in her portrayal for this documentary, she indirectly admits it. It is a key scene in the documentary, which is all about the (dis)belief, admiration, and simultaneously great aversion to everything she says. Kieboom's music uses several recurring, sometimes sparsely melodic recurring pieces, but they can hardly be called an actual theme. The encompassing, wordless female vocals and an optimistic solo piano in moments of nostalgia and positive progression come closest.
Most of the music is atmospheric, hesitant, slightly melodic, and subdued in intent, with most underscoring these conflicting feelings about who she really is, reall well. The strings and electronics, alluding to this mixture of feelings, are sometimes slow and illustrative and, to a degree, poignant in helping the complicated portrayal of her mind. A musical voice for Laila is presented through regular use of female wordless singing by Hilda Örvarsdóttir.
In attending to childhood memories and her current-day 'happy' life (she is affected by long-term depression, according to herself), these are in between estrangement, nostalgia, and upbeat, often underscored by solo piano mixed in hybrid with electronics and strings. Clinically, they are relatively the most direct in underscoring less multilayered emotions. Of all the music, the most deviating cue comes halfway through as an almost retro synthesiser loop supports Beertheussen telling about her artistic intentions.
Kieboom's Ik was het Niet - Het Verhaal van Laila B is likely not a score that will impress on its own but is well worth in what it establishes on screen.
(31-01-2026)
Director Stefanie de Brouwer approached her film with an open mind, seeing Bertheussen as a human being, showing multifaceted sides of her, but without hurting the person she portrays. It intersperses interviews with Bertheussen, footage of her interrogation, trial, news items, and current-day life 'overcoming' all that befell her, now divorced from her husband, fabricating artistic handbags as a means of expressing her progression.
Matthijs Kieboom was drawn creating original music. Over the years, he has impressed with a multitude of scores for various media, including documentaries. They are wildly different, from the impressive orchestral music of Wild op de Veluwe to the more introverted music for last year's De Verkrotte Droom.
Ik was het Niet - Het Verhaal van Laila B uses very specific sound design, including strings, cello, electronics, piano, a female wordless vocal, and more for an introverted but captivating score.
Early on in the film, the director asks Laila if she has been able to forgive herself, which Bertheussen did not like - she was infuriated -and refused to answer. Yet, in her portrayal for this documentary, she indirectly admits it. It is a key scene in the documentary, which is all about the (dis)belief, admiration, and simultaneously great aversion to everything she says. Kieboom's music uses several recurring, sometimes sparsely melodic recurring pieces, but they can hardly be called an actual theme. The encompassing, wordless female vocals and an optimistic solo piano in moments of nostalgia and positive progression come closest.
Most of the music is atmospheric, hesitant, slightly melodic, and subdued in intent, with most underscoring these conflicting feelings about who she really is, reall well. The strings and electronics, alluding to this mixture of feelings, are sometimes slow and illustrative and, to a degree, poignant in helping the complicated portrayal of her mind. A musical voice for Laila is presented through regular use of female wordless singing by Hilda Örvarsdóttir.
In attending to childhood memories and her current-day 'happy' life (she is affected by long-term depression, according to herself), these are in between estrangement, nostalgia, and upbeat, often underscored by solo piano mixed in hybrid with electronics and strings. Clinically, they are relatively the most direct in underscoring less multilayered emotions. Of all the music, the most deviating cue comes halfway through as an almost retro synthesiser loop supports Beertheussen telling about her artistic intentions.
Kieboom's Ik was het Niet - Het Verhaal van Laila B is likely not a score that will impress on its own but is well worth in what it establishes on screen.
(31-01-2026)