This clip “film #2: Varúð ” is part of a project called Sigur Rós mystery film experiment. That’s about twelve releases from the band, with different directors creating short films for all the eight tracks from the new album “Valtari”(in english it translates as “steamroller”).
The video for the highly beautiful song Varúð was directed by the talented director Ingibjörg Birgisdóttir(Jónsi’s sister), who was also responsible for the new album artwork (using the same technique of this clip). She was graduated from the Icelandic Academy of Art in 2006 and made album covers and music videos for Múm, Jónsi, Sin fang, Sóley and many more. She just premiered her first documentary called Grandma lo-fi.
“I made the video by animating a postcard and filmed myself over and over again climbing on top of a woodenbox in front of some blue paper.” She says also that was inspired by the song title, Varúð means “caution” or “warning” so this image instantly came to her mind: someone making warning signs with a flashlight. So the video was thought to have a slow build up, like the song and leave something for the viewers to imagine for themselves.
The starting point of this moving art’s work is a vintage postcard from Öxaráfoss, the amazing waterfall near the Almannagjá’s gorge in the National Park of Iceland: Þingvellir. So the visuals are based on a basic fixed image changing in seasons, and human figures can be seen among the rocks communicating in a special bright morse code that seems a paranormal language. Good choice, the singing of Jónsi is much more closer to the melancholic wail of an alien than to an human language.
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[...] Ceci n’est pas une vidéo. Sin Fang is a solo project by Sindri Már Sigfússon (Seabear). He released his last album “Summer Echoes” earlier this year on Morr Music. Two Boys is a short ballad reminds me Three imaginary boys by The Cure, for the same softly melancholic way of singing and the numbness of lyrics. Directed by Ingibjörg Birgisdóttir (the girl whose face appears on the cover of the Sigur Rós’ first album, “Von”) this “off-kilter video contains unique visuals that accompany the unusual, slightly unsettling and beautiful world Sin Fang has created and is known for”. The clip focuses on the Sindri’s silhouette. At first two hands appear and clinging to the eyes make them slip away, so it zooms to boy’s bare chest and his body is suddenly covered in eyes (imagine something like E.T.’s chicken pox). Then eyes start crying rivers and things get even weirder: the modern Oedipus (this time blinded by love) starts filling himself of water. When the water level reaches half-body my thoughts run to Georgette, who was painting by her husband Magritte, half woman and half sky full of clouds. “La Magie noire” is the title of the painting, and also the power of Inga, director-artist who works more emotionally than technically, so creates unusuals artistic productions with low budget though snappy effect (take a look to “A little bit”, the video by Ingibjörg Birgisdóttir and Lilja Birgisdóttir made for a Múm concert in Krakow 2010). As the song says “shine a light on the good things“. Do you remember the past Inga’s video review? Click here. [...]
[...] weeks ago I already talked about the Sigur Rós project called Mystery film experiment. The band decided giving to a dozen of film makers the same modest budget and asked them to [...]
[...] Shit and Celestine, and over the years he has collaborated with other great artists such as Sigur Rós (in 2008 he toured with the band). Ólafur, as Jónsi (Sigur Rós leader), was born in Iceland and [...]
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[...] to The Valtari Mystery Film Experiment (we already talked about this project with the review of Varud and Eg [...]
[...] this videoclip is Jonsi’s sister and she already directed a music video for Seabear, but also Varúð and Ekki Múkk for Sigur Ros. We have the same kind of postproduction of these two videos, I think [...]