Sigur Ros - Heima

The Pontiac

I'm just after watching this and omg it's such a beautiful film. It features the band as they host a number of free and unannounced shows in their home country to finish the 'Takk tour' in 2006.

It's available to watch on youtube, but I really wouldn't. I'd recommend buying the dvd to really appreciate it; as it's 80% concert or music footage and it really deserves to be listened to (and watched) properly. The band members are such a humble bunch of people too, they're incredible. Here's the trailer..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CfmpteEAGtY

In the summer of 2006, in the endless magic hour of the Icelandic summer, Sigur Rós played a series of concerts around their homeland. Combining both the biggest and smallest shows of their career, the entire tour was filmed, and now provides a unique insight into one of the world’s shyest and least understood bands captured live in their natural habitat.

The culmination of more than a year spent promoting their hugely successful ‘Takk…’ album around the world, the Icelandic tour was free to all-comers and went largely unannounced. Playing in deserted fish factories, outsider art follies, far-flung community halls, sylvan fields, darkened caves and the hoofprint of Odin’s horse, Sleipnir*, the band reached an entirely new spectrum of the Icelandic population; young and old, ardent and merely quizzical, entirely by word-of-mouth.

The question of the way Sigur Rós’s music relates to, and is influenced by, their environment has been reduced to a journalistic cliché about glacial majesty and fire and ice, but there is no doubt that the band are inextricably linked to the land in which they were forged. And the decision to film this first-ever Sigur Rós film in Iceland was, in the end, ineluctable.

Shot using a largely Icelandic crew (to minimise Eurovision-style scenic-wonder overload), ‘Heima’ - which means both “at home” and “homeland” - is an attempt to make a film every bit as big, beautiful and unfettered as a Sigur Rós album. As such it was always going to be something of a grand folie, but one, which taking in no fewer than 15 locations around Iceland (including the country’s largest ever concert at the band’s Reykjavik homecoming), is never less than epic in its ambition.

Material from all four of the band’s albums is featured, including many rare and notable moments. Among these are a heart-stopping rendition of the previously unreleased ‘Gitardjamm’, filmed inside a derelict herring oil tank in the far West Fjords; a windblown, one-mic recording of ‘Vaka’, shot at a dam protest camp subsequently drowned by rising water; and first time acoustic versions of such rare live beauties as ‘Staralfur’, ‘Agaetis Byrjun’ and ‘Von’.

Heima is the first chance to see Sigur Rós live on DVD.

Miguel_Sanchez

It looks great. Some gorgeous cinematography in there and the band are, for Sigur Ros, surprisingly talkative.

I really haven't been sold on Sigur Ros' last album at all but this is an excellent film.

Heisenberg.

This post has been deleted.

JerryHandbag

Bought this last year, your right OP it really should be purchased and watched at home with the lights dimmed It's a treasure, the one music DVD I would run back in and save if the house was on fire.

I love how the Icelandic landscape is almost a mirror of the music as they are playing.

Miguel_Sanchez

JerryHandbag wrote: »

It's a treasure, the one music DVD I would run back in and save if the house was on fire.

Woah there! Obviously you don't own a copy of Stop Making Sense!

Ziggy_Stardust

JerryHandbag wrote: »

Bought this last year, your right OP it really should be purchased and watched at home with the lights dimmed It's a treasure, the one music DVD I would run back in and save if the house was on fire.

I love how the Icelandic landscape is almost a mirror of the music as they are playing.

Right that's me convinced, its moved to the top of the purchase list. I've only started really listening to Sigur Ros so this should help me get to know them in a bit more detail. I took a look at a few vids on youtube, i'd love to see them live!

JerryHandbag

Jeff_Lebowski wrote: »

Woah there! Obviously you don't own a copy of Stop Making Sense!

Dont worry lad, its on my shopping list. Love Talking Heads

Ziggy_Stardust wrote: »

Right that's me convinced, its moved to the top of the purchase list. I've only started really listening to Sigur Ros so this should help me get to know them in a bit more detail. I took a look at a few vids on youtube, i'd love to see them live!

Cant go wrong with this DVD. Yep I saw them live in 08 in Stradbally, it was biblical

H8GHOTI

Ziggy_Stardust wrote: »

Right that's me convinced, its moved to the top of the purchase list. I've only started really listening to Sigur Ros so this should help me get to know them in a bit more detail. I took a look at a few vids on youtube, i'd love to see them live!

Jonsi from Sigur Ros is playing a solo show at Electric Picnic this year.

Ziggy_Stardust

H8GHOTI wrote: »

Jonsi from Sigur Ros is playing a solo show at Electric Picnic this year.

Oh yeah thats right, i'll be going to EP so i'll have to catch him. I haven't heard any of his solo stuff is it any use? Is it along the same lines as Sigur Ros?

S.M.B.

Saw Jonsi the other night and it was pretty phenomenal. The lad put a lot of effort into putting on a great show. The fantastic stage design/visuals really added to the experience.

I'm not the biggest fan of the album but a lot of the songs sounded a lot grander and sigur ros like when played live.

liah

One of the most beautiful things I've ever seen, that music combined with that scenery and just the idea of playing for all these tiny little villages for nothing, and people bringing their entire families, children through to grandparents, is a very powerful image when put together. Gave me so much more respect for them, definitely one of my favourite bands of all time.

Ridiculously inspired and inspiring.

GopErthike

JerryHandbag wrote: »

Bought this last year, your right OP it really should be purchased and watched at home with the lights dimmed It's a treasure, the one music DVD I would run back in and save if the house was on fire.

I love how the Icelandic landscape is almost a mirror of the music as they are playing.

Spot on! They're music has always reminded me of a country i've never been to???????

I just got Jonsi's album today, have it on my lap just after ripping it about to stick it on next, but now I'm torn, might watch the DVD again.

Anyone else at the gig in the Temple theatre (yes dance fans, temple theatre) about 10 years ago? It was special.

H8GHOTI

Ziggy_Stardust wrote: »

Oh yeah thats right, i'll be going to EP so i'll have to catch him. I haven't heard any of his solo stuff is it any use? Is it along the same lines as Sigur Ros?

Honestly, I haven't heard enough of either of them to make proper comparisons. This is a single from his album. It's a bit faster/dancier than anything I've heard from Sigur Ros but ya it's along the same lines.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6HjT4SQKJI

Ant

I was lucky enough to see Heima in the IFI a couple of years ago for a once-off screening. I also saw Stop Making Sense there about 10 years ago as part of a musical themed week. Nothing like the big screen for watching great films.

rothai

Ant wrote: »

I was lucky enough to see Heima in the IFI a couple of years ago for a once-off screening.

+1

it was savage, then went out and bought the dvd, still savage

Beautiful Movie.

Love the locations and when that guy made an instrument.

Must watch it again soon.