7.8 | / 10 |
Users | 4.5 | |
Reviewer | 4.0 | |
Overall | 4.1 |
Icelandic post-rock band Sigur Rós melds its sonic landscape with visuals in this concert film/documentary.
Director: Vincent MorrisetMusic | 100% |
Documentary | 78% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.78:1
Music: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
Japanese
25GB Blu-ray Disc
Three-disc set (1 BD, 2 CDs)
Region free
Movie | 4.0 | |
Video | 4.5 | |
Audio | 5.0 | |
Extras | 1.5 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
Just ask any music journalist—trying to describe the sound of Icelandic post-rock quartet Sigur Rós is a futile exercise in hyperbole, with flailing
allusions to the band’s icy, volcanic homeland. Their early albums swell and pulse outward like broadcasts from the dark side of some frozen, storm-
enshrouded planet. Lead singer Jónsi Birgisson’s falsetto has the high-pitched pierce of a glass plate vibrated by a sine wave, his signature guitar sound
—the reverb-heavy scraping of a cello bow across the strings—like the groaning shear of a thawing glacial plane. At their most cosmic, they make
music that simultaneously suggests creation ex nihilo and the collapse of the universe at the very end of time—a score for the dying dreams of
some forgotten Old Norse deity.
Cliché? Sure. Overblown? Absolutely. But this is what inevitably comes to mind when you turn off the lights, put on some serious, audiophile-grade
headphones—iPod earbuds don’t cut it here—and let yourself be enveloped by Sigur Rós. Over the course of five full-length albums, the band has
progressively gotten more melodic and concise—a shift from brooding to triumphant—but what remains constant is a sense of transcendence, of
outright majesty. There’s no one like them. It’s appropriate, then, that their latest concert film, Inni, is far from typical. Where most
concert movies now are presented in pristine high definition, with sweeping crane shots and pulled back views of the complete stage—an aesthetic that
has no mystery or artfulness whatsoever—Inni is grainy, dark, and warped, with tight close-ups of the band members seemingly playing in a
black void. It’s lo-fi, handmade, hypnotic—think the Talking Heads’ Stop Making Sense as shot by Guy Maddin or David Lynch.
Obviously, due to the way the film was shot and manually post-processed, Inni can't be evaluated like your run-of-the-mill release. In fact, the image that director Vincent Morriset has cooked up is practically antithetical to what most people expect from Blu-ray—namely, a crystal clear, vibrantly colored picture. That's just not what Inni is all about. Instead, it has a grungy, organic-meets-HD quality that splits the difference between film and digital. It's intentionally soft and purposefully murky, with crushing black levels and contrast that's sometimes pushed and elsewhere flattened. It even utilizes occasional standard definition archival footage. But there no question whatsoever that this 1080p/AVC-encoded transfer is the best way to watch the film outside of a theater. (Speaking of, keep your eyes out for showings. The film is playing dates in select cities across the country.) Inni looks fantastic—it has the haunting, flickering quality of a thrice-duped German Expressionist film—and I'm certain that it looks exactly as intended here. You could probably nitpick and find traces of compression or other minor issues—I didn't spot any worth noting—but I'm giving the disc a 4.5/5 for being a gorgeous, wholly unique Blu-ray experience.
Sigur Rós, live, mixed in 5.1 and presented via a lossless DTS-HD Master Audio track? Yes, please, and thank you. Inni's stellar visuals are backed up by an extremely powerful, immersive reproduction of the band's nine-song set. If you're familiar with Sigur Rós, you know that dynamic doesn't even begin to describe the depth of their music, which combines deep bass, aching-glacier guitar swells, and crashing drums with crystalline high-end sounds like xylophones and tinkling electronics. Not to mention Jónsi's world-shattering falsetto. Live, their sound is cavernously huge, drenched in watery reverb. This mix gets it perfect. Period. All 5.1 channels are utilized throughout, filling the room with rich, clear, forceful audio. You'll want turn your receiver up loud, sit back, and soak it all in.
The disc includes four bonus tracks, which are presented in black and white 16mm but don't appear to have been manually manipulated like the rest of the footage. In high definition.
Sigur Rós recently announced a new album and tour for 2012, but when Inni was recorded, their fate as a band was in question, and director Vincent Morriset was under the assumption that he was recording what might be their last concerts. That sense of urgent finality comes through not just in the music, but also in Morriset's stark, hand-tweaked black and white visuals. Inni is what all concert films should aspire to be—not just a documentary, but a summation of the band's entire aesthetic—and this Blu-ray is easily the best way to watch it at home. The release also includes the 2-disc, 15-track live album, which includes several songs not heard in the film. Highly recommended!
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