Preamble
I’ll take any excuse to write a series about Sigur Rós. Right now they’re releasing a set of twelve videos by different filmmakers that illustrate what the songs on Sigur Ros’ new album, Valtari, make them think of. The band itself said it wanted no influence over what they make, something that resonates with me since I’ve steadfastly refused to use Google translate to decode the Icelandic utterings of their songs. Over the coming weeks, I’ll be responding to each of the videos, sometimes as rambled fiction, sometimes as powerpoints, sometimes in pictures (if I feel like it). Here begins week one.
week 1
ég anda
director: ragnar kjartansson
We open on a set with a blank background like an Apple commercial, two tuxedoed men symmetrically eating steak dinners as the swells of the opening track begin. I’ve so far only considered Sigur Rós to be appropriate music for a dinner party where I would be comfortable sobbing in front of my guests. The opening makes me imagine the band in matching suits playing the Wedding March. Maybe it’s the close shots of the candles mixing with the churchy echoing and gentle strings. Not that anyone should be eating in church.
Things take a distressing turn a minute and a half in – one of the men slices a piece of steak the size of a child’s burger and wrestles it into his mouth. Even before the clattering of pots and pans begins it’s clear that this won’t end well. My mouth is dry, and I’m momentarily glad I don’t eat meat. A moustached man enters stage left, confirming that all is not well, staring defiantly or perhaps disapprovingly at the camera, with a large cardboard sign that reads ‘Choking Hazard.’ Sure enough, the younger man who has foolishly tried to swallow half a slab of steak at once begins to choke, and the other rushes to his aid, though not before obsessively folding and laying down his napkin.
The video takes a turn towards silent film, the Chaplin-esque plaque holder now lifting up cards with instructions for the steps to take when a fellow diner is suffocating. The measured backslapping fails to dislodge the errant meat, and our plaque holder, now resembling an air hostess giving the pre-flight safety demo, stares tearfully at the camera while grasping a new card which reads ‘Time for the Heimlich Manoeuver.’ He runs through the steps, but still the meat holds fast. A brief cut, and now we are being shown the variations of the Heimlich appropriate for pregnant women and infants.
Finally, the now angry plaque holder pulls out the last resort, not recommended by the Red Cross – throwing the victim forcefully so that their abdomen strikes the table. The rescuer turns to us, eyes hardened like a Nordic Don Corleone, the music sparkling all the while. The moment of truth comes, and the suffocating diner is tossed against the table. Lo and behold, the meat ambles out, lazily easing to a rest by a glass of wine as the formerly dying man rolls his eyes and smiles absurdly in relief.
The music cuts out for a second and the cast faces us, eyeing us shyly while the valiant sign holder bears his final placard, “Breathing Feels Great.” But the ominous sense that all is not yet well lingers, a gravelly reverb rolling heavily across the scene as our players continue to smile unaware.
