Director: Dean DeBlois
Year Released: 2007
Rating: 2.5
As a rule, concert pictures are generally lousy - they usually fail to properly convey the experience (the crowd, the intense noise, the anger at paying $8 for a Rolling Rock) but this is a nice, somber documentary, allowing glimpses of a series of free concerts given by the Icelandic post-rock outfit Sigur Rós in their homeland. DeBlois - best known for directing a Disney movie - manages to capture some of the stark loveliness of Iceland and mixes in footage of the band playing a variety of venues, from formal to informal: from a proper stage to outside an abandoned cabin to a defunct fishing warehouse. The interviews with the band still don't reveal much about them, their inspirations, their passions, their thoughts on the music industry or anything even remotely personal, though they've never exactly been known for their frankness (for example, they all but refused to speak in an interview with NPR). Aside from being a fan-friendly endorsement of the 'good-hearted' nature of the band, it also acts as an advertisement for the country, which appears quaint and romantically chilly.
