Originally titled Heima, which means "at home", the documentary was directed by Dean DeBlois and filmed by Alan Calzati.
The content of the film is mainly completed by three parts: character language, natural character scenery and music scene. The story of the Sigur Ros band returning home to Iceland after touring around the world for a series of free, unadvertised concerts.
The film mainly observes this "trip home" from the perspective of a third party. The performances in each location are integrated with the natural environment of Iceland, including the performers' feelings and experiences during the performance.
Director Dean DeBlois, as an animator, meticulously captures the beauty of nature, and the music becomes one.
The film was created in the summer of 2006, in the midst of a boom in the commercialization of music around the world. The filming of "Heima" is not only the call of the musicians themselves to the soul and real music, but also the return and exile of the music of human beings themselves, so the title of this film is translated as "Listen to the Wind's Song" , very appropriate. When our ears are eroded in a series of processed and transformed music such as records, we listen to these songs that return to our homeland, exile nature, and connect with nature. The songs are like "wind", which simply blows through our hearts. Dust off the mind. All distractions are thrown away from the minds of musicians, there is no worry about the number of people in the concert, no pressure from the record company, no loud advertising, no commercial interests... Everything returns to the most primitive form of music-inner monologue, at this time, His songs are in harmony with nature. "You must know that only the wind can pass through thorns and bamboo fences with ease."
"The music thing was put aside, so to speak."
The consciousness of the mind is the return.
"At that time, I was very young. Well, 21, and then all of a sudden, you have a record company, you have a publisher, you have money, and... you know, all this shit. It's a kind of . . . It's a bit overwhelming, and it's unsettling for me. The music thing, so to speak, is on the sidelines." "You're in the band, but all you do is business, like having meetings with lawyers. Things like that. On the one hand, it's exciting, you can plan for the future. But at the same time, it's less and less like making music and more like an office worker."
After experiencing the impact of music commercialization, this band still remembers the most primitive idea of making music, simply recording the soul with music, expressing emotions, and singing in nature.
"Pall, he's an artist, there's a kind of flat slab of stone in some places, and he goes there and knocks on those slabs. The slabs make specific pitches, and he makes this chromatic-accurate piece out of the slabs. The marimba. An amazing instrument made out of only stone." "A total naturalist, he and his mother lived in the country, and he spent his days crafting, carving stones, Or make a rhubarb marimba or something—that’s just rhubarb.”
This is the return to nature and the essence of music - everything that comes from the love of nature.
"From this perspective, it's a reward."
The most simple and moving emotion in the world - gratitude.
"These residents are people who have been supporting us, so it's a wonderful feeling." "In the past, a lot of bands came to Iceland to tour, and there were a lot of people getting together and singing and dancing, but it's less and less. "I've spoken to the local residents, and they're all happy to hear this in our village." "Looks like . , and play for the residents there." "From this point of view, it is a kind of reward," the group of musicians said.
Because there are beautiful emotions, the original intention of beauty is produced, and then the beautiful music is produced.
When performing in Osnadale, it was on a field with green grass, and the field was full of people, listening to the music quietly. The feeling of being closest to nature and the atmosphere of the hometown moves people. A harmonious picture that speaks of gratitude and depicts nature.
"So we thought it would be a good idea to protest with music."
Gradually, human beings are also unable to recognize what human beings should look like.
"The dam is on the largest unspoiled highland in Europe, we went there to support their protests, they were going to flood the land just to power a few aluminium plants, we saw the dam When... I think everyone was silent because it was a giant monster, they changed everything, installed generators to get energy, and we came here, protesting the construction of the hydropower plant, so we felt, protesting with music It's a good idea."
To protest with music is to protest against a disordered state of human ignorance expansion in a natural state. Protesting with natural music can most impress these human beings who are also in nature.
"It's impossible to recover, they all washed away, it's really... sad."
Their voices of protest seemed quite helpless again, impacting the hearts of human beings - if they can't wake up as soon as possible, then all the beauty will become a phantom.
"In Diopavik, you can see some huge, rusted fishing boats, abandoned in old factories, some maybe only used for two years, the sea has no fish and the factories are closing." In a sense, it's a unique place on this planet, and it's strange that people think of these as cash cows" "Most people can be divided into two categories, those who want to make as much as possible in a short period of time. money; the other will consider the long-term impact on Iceland, and when it comes to that, I have to think about some of the big industrial bases in Iceland, the huge aluminum plants.”
"The village used to be full of vitality, because those fishing factories, now there are no fish, can make this place full of life, it's good, even if it's only for one night." The band played in Diopavik's exhaust gas factory, all sides were gray, The lifeless, heart-piercing voice and pure tone contrasted with the surroundings. From the bottom of my heart, I want to make this peaceful land into its original appearance, so simple that it makes people cry and reflect, what makes us destroy?
"We don't do enough to protect these beautiful and unique things, like tearing down old houses to make some ugly buildings. We seem to be pretending that we shouldn't be." "We started playing, The wind stopped, and it was very magical, because it happened at this time, and after the performance, the wind started to blow again." When nature heard the music calling for the original appearance of human beings, the wind could not help but stop and stay, moved on their sobriety.
"Ah, don't you want to go to the concert?"
The original appearance of music does not have a deliberately built stage, expensive ticket prices, and gorgeous packaging lighting.
"I mean, not many people have done that to make it so easy for people to go to a concert." At a time when everyone was vying for VIP seats to show off their wealth in a better position, quietly, music Commercialization has changed.
In the empty room of Serra Dale, there is no audience or applause, singing for himself, singing for nature, no pretentiousness.
In the wilderness of Askee, people stopped when they heard the sound.
"It was a public holiday. Usually on weekends, people would go camping on the outskirts of the city, and then suddenly everyone thought, 'Ah, don't you want to go to a concert?' In the end, it was overcrowded..." Music is like this, because It impresses itself and attracts itself to listen.
The filming in Askee sums up the character of this film very well. A group of people playing with musical instruments, with insects flying around, a group of people sitting on the ground below. There are old people, children, women and men... Dogs and people snuggle together, and children fly red kites and giggling... The blue sky and white clouds are a little bit red, and finally it turns into a sunset. From morning to night, they sang with their hearts, exiled music to nature, and harmoniously integrated with nature. When shooting, the music is combined with the shooting scene, and the rhythm is consistent, so that the audience can easily feel the atmosphere of the music exiled to nature at that time.
"Everything came out just right."
The last stop of the concert, they went home.
"I was on stage thinking, everything is just right, the sound is perfect, the feel is perfect, you're floating, it's probably the best performance ever, you don't even realize you're singing, your mind It was blank, and the body floated freely."
In the film, the band's last performance in Reykjavik was dark, with red lights and a dark audience under the stage. It can be seen that everyone in the field is rhythmic with the ups and downs of the music, including the performers, singers, audience... They have been intoxicated in the soul of this music, no protest, no helplessness, no business, no everything Miscellaneous thoughts, return to the essence of music: music, music. The picture fits just right.
"The more we travel, the more we know how to appreciate the world and Iceland. After traveling all over the world, when we come back to Iceland, wow! It's such a peaceful paradise, we have to keep ourselves here." After the musical exile, come home, Heima.
In fact, the whole documentary is telling the story about "Heima", recording their hometown singing, recording their feelings, recording the audience's reaction, recording the natural reaction, recording the pure music: piano, acoustic guitar, acoustic bass , the percussion board, the violin, the trumpet, the collision between the stones... It is so clean and simple, but the deep meaning contained in it makes many people enter the silent reflection.
It's like a gentle warning. Warning In the "increasingly developing" human society, what kind of role is suitable for human beings? Make humans the masters of the earth? In the capital-commercialized society, have you always put yourself in the whirlpool of money and money, unable to find your soul? Are the people who are numbly doing the work in front of them following their own hearts and looking for what they like without being assimilated or even corrupted? In a rapidly developing society, tired of competition, have you forgotten the most precious, purest and most simple emotions in the world, grateful for the return?
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A good documentary can always reflect a lot of things from a simple thing, because it is rooted in our life, it is a real record of our life, a picture record. The homecoming journey of the Sigur Ros band is also everyone's homecoming journey.
From the real records of their journeys, we begin to think about ourselves, about nature, and about the relationship between man and nature.
In the complex journey of life, "people go home all their lives", this is not only the hometown, but also the direction of each person's departure, what they thought when they started, and the place where people should finally arrive.
(This article was first published on the WeChat public account "One Star")
View more about Sigur Rós: Heima reviews
