Sunday 19 May
 
 

The Last Stand

Early in The Last Stand, the small-town sheriff played by Arnold Schwarzenegger says, "It's my day off. Should be a quiet weekend." That's the new way of saying, "I've got one week to retirement," because it signals — with flashing neon and everything — that life is going to royally upend those plans.
05/17/2013 | Comments 0

Texas Chainsaw

One of the most inconsistent franchises in movie history is the one beget by Tobe Hooper's 1974 classic, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. How does one follow all those less-than-beloved sequels? Lionsgate's latest in the series — the seventh — has a solution: Ignore 'em.
05/17/2013 | Comments 0

Captain America: Collector’s Edition

Not long after Batman changed Hollywood in the summer of 1989, every studio wanted to have the next comics-based blockbuster. I remember visiting Penn Square Mall’s multiplex (as I did often back then) and seeing a poster for Captain America. The one-sheet was comprised of little more than a close-up of Cap’s iconic shield and a promise to arrive next summer.
05/16/2013 | Comments 0

Dark Circles

With the Broken Lizard comedy troupe becoming increasingly broken, member Paul Soter has branched off to write and direct something about as far away as one can get from the likes of Super Troopers and Beerfest: a horror film. Now that I've seen it, I'm thinking maybe he should stay on his own.
05/16/2013 | Comments 0

Die! Die! My Darling!

File 1965's Die! Die! My Darling! under that now-dead subgenre dubbed "Grande Dame Guignol." The Hammer Films production may lack the dueling duo of two twilight-era titans of Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? and the others, but truth be told, Tallulah Bankhead is fierce enough to provide all the fire it needs.
05/14/2013 | Comments 0
Home · Articles · Movies · Documentary · Inni
Documentary

Inni


Beautiful, alien music gets a beautiful, alien concert film.

Matt Carney November 10th, 2011

If you missed last night’s chance at Oklahoma City Museum of Art, but like music, watch “Inni.” If you like film, watch “Inni.” Even if you liked Sigur Rós’ other concert documentary, “Heima,” go see “Inni.” I personally guarantee that it’s unlike anything you’ve ever seen.

inni

That’s only partially due to the Icelandic post-rockers’ otherworldly approach to music. Shot during a two-night stand in 2008 at London’s historic Alexandra Palace, French-Canadian director Vincent Morisset transferred digital footage to 16mm film, then again, through prisms and “found objects,” according to the “Inní­­” website. Combined with the abstract and always beautiful cinematography, the result is a stark 75 minutes that captures the soul of one of the planet’s most alien bands.

“Ný batterí,” the dark centerpiece of “Agaetis Byrjun” (arguably its best album) opens this film, casting a monochromatic shadow on the rest of it. And in case the beginning didn’t feel creepy enough, lead singer Jón Þór Birgisson twists and writhes as he saws at his guitar with a violin bow, but with all the stage’s darkness, he might be strangling a man, for all the audience can tell.

There’s no “Gobbledigook” here. The nine songs selected span the band’s five discs, but are most often melancholy at their very brightest (the exception being the childish, “Inní mér syngur vitleysingur” where Birgisson shares the piano bench with Kjartan Sveinsson in one of the film’s most affecting moments). For the most part, Birgisson’s groaning guitar hangs over funereal drum marches and murky bass play from Georg Hólm, although his boyish voice cuts through the swaths of gloomy sound, whether he’s singing into his microphone or the strings of his instrument.

“Inni” is interspersed by snippets of unexplained shots of the group winning the Iceland Music Award, riding bicycles, and being asked awkward questions by NPR; the choice provides only a bare-bones backdrop (I’d recommend watching “Heima” if you want more in the way of a conventional documentary), but none’s really needed here. Morisset’s intimate cinematography focuses on the tiniest storytelling details: the fringe on Birgisson’s tailored jacket, the way Sveinsson’s head bounces and just how hard Orri Dýrason’s cymbals flap when they play “Festival,” (which you can watch below) for instance. You’re so close to the band that you forget about the actual Alexandra Palace audience, at least until the end when they make the oddest of appearances.

You’ll walk away scratching your head in awe.

 
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