With the release of their sixth effort Valtari last month, every one’s favourite Icelanders have put out a series of intriguing videos for its tracks – none more so than the simplistic eight minute piano soundscape ‘Fjögur piano’.
The talking point is a naked Shia LaBoef; but apart from a two second glimpse at his junk, the video rapidly flicks from him and a mystery woman doing a series of ‘experimental’ acts. These include wearing each others’ clothes, sucking rather provocatively on some lollipops, sitting in the back of a simulated underwater car (still suggestively sucking on those lollipops), smashing framed butterflies and LaBoef carving into the girl’s back with a shard of glass, before returning to the beginning.
Director Alma Har’el’s video makes sense; in another dimension. But this is why it works well, as the beauty of Sigur Rós’ music does not require you to necessarily understand what it is trying to evoke. The film also strikes at the heart with its power and graphic depictions, which are undeniably pretentious and could be mistaken as snippets from an extreme drama workshop. But all that does not matter as it enhances an already beautiful piece of music to distressing brutality, something that one can fathom no matter what culture they come from.
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Sam Warner
Dance Yrself Clean
