Directed by Dean DeBlois
Iceland, 2007
Genre: Rock
Returning home to Iceland after a long world tour in 2006, Sigur Ros performed a series of free, usually unannounced shows, playing to audiences of all sizes and ages at village halls and community suppers, deep valleys and open fields, an abandoned fishery and an environmental protest camp. From this unusual jaunt, director Dean DeBlois – whose only prior feature credit was the oddball Disney cartoon Lilo & Stitch (he’s since made the animated hit How to Train Your Dragon and the Jonsi video album Go Quiet) – has constructed a tour film unlike any other. Stunningly shot (by Alan Calzatti and Magni Agustsson) and peppered with suitably low key interviews with the modest foursome, Heima juxtaposes the soaring, otherworldly sound of Sigur Ros with the soaring, otherworldly landscape of Iceland to create a visually stunning record of the band as very much a product of their homeland’s wild vistas and close-knit culture. The alternately humble and majestic settings provide a perfect complement to Sigur Ros’s sonic palette of serene contemplation and ecstatic, thunderous release, climaxing with a gorgeous and terrifying rampage through “Popplagio” in the Reykjavik twilight.
A new Sigur Ros concert film, Inni, premieres September 3 at the Venice Film Festival and will be released as a music DVD in November.