Knowing my great affection for Sigur Ros, my friends may be wondering why Hvarf-Heim, the last double disk from SR to drop, wasn't on my best of music choices yesterday. Well, it's an amazing album, but we can't have Sigur Ros top every category, can we? The choice for the best DVD of the year is not an easy one. A film like Shortbus, which is a great film that deserves a wider audience, could have easily topped my list this year. One of the many TV Box sets, like Hex or Slings and Arrows, that are difficult to find in the U.S. might have been there, too.
But no DVD release of the year moved me or excited me the way the Sigur Ros documentary/travellog Heima has done. Sigur Ros has always had a very "visual" sound, and their videos are among my favorites ever. Heima makes the argument that Sigur Ros is a product of its geography. We learn a little more about the members of the group, about their politics, and their great affection for their homeland. But mostly we get Sigur Ros performing in the most gorgeous of settings captured by the most gorgeous photography.
The idea is a simple one. After traveling the world in support of Takk, their 2005 album that did top my list (and many others), the band decides to travel across the villages and towns of Iceland. They play churches and town halls and open fields. Many moments are simply breathtaking.
I have to go back 25 years to find a film that moved me in similar ways. In 1982, I was bowled over by the marriage of music and visual images in Koyaanisqatsi, a film that still remains among the most important I have seen. I was humbled by the incredible artistry that unfolded before me on the screen. In 2007, I had that experience again with Heima. Sigur Ros is an amazing group of musicians and Heima brought me that feeling of discovering something new and fresh all over again.
No comments:
Post a Comment