Inni, or: Attempting to define the indefinable band

Inni (2011)

Directed by Vincent Morisset

***SPOILERS***

Music critic Simon Reynolds described the popular music genre Post-Rock as “using rock instrumentation for non-rock purposes; using guitars and facilitators of timbre and textures rather than riffs and power chords.” In a nutshell, this definition represents the very core of Post-Rock, but it’s more of a nod to the fathers of Post-Rock—Talk Talk, Slint, and Bark Psychosis—than anything else. A definition stripped down to the bare essentials, these bands nonetheless found power in sweeping, grandiose instrumentals, creating meditative spiritual journeys (Talk Talk’s Spirit of Eden) or terrorizing senses of emptiness (Slint’s Spiderland), pushing the boundaries of rock music by seemingly doing less. Post-Rock has carried on all the way to 2012. With bands like Explosions in the Sky and This Will Destroy You occupying the top spots, the term “Post-Post-Rock” has been tossed around—more of a tongue-in-cheek reference than an accurate descriptor, pinning their solemn tunes as more lethargic than cathartic. But between Post-Post-Rock-traumatic stress disorder and the birth of the genre, two bands have pushed the Post-Rock further than ever before, representing the shift of Post-Rock from the underground music scene to Friday Night Lights and Moneyball scores: the first being the unrelentingly contemplative Godspeed You! Black Emperor, and the second being Sigur Rós.

Sigur Rós is the damnedest band to make a documentary about. The utterly ordinary and improbably dull storyline that is the band’s formation undoubtedly fails in comparison to, say, delving into Ágætis byrjun—the band’s most beautiful and groundbreaking album. It’s almost more flattering to ignore Sigur Rós’ background and relish in their idiosyncratic live performances, which hold the same gravitas as endlessly and peacefully floating through space. But director Vincent Morisset attempts to find the best of both worlds with Inni, employing both a concert film and music documentary as his media. The result is an admirable feat that both respects and dishonors these Post-Rock gods. Heavy on gravity and light on substance, Inni is a fully realized and failed attempt by Morisset to cinematically capture the band nobody can seem to describe.

“Did you start out playing this kind of music, or did you start out more as a regular-sounding band and kind of go here as you experimented?”

That’s the first question Luke Burbank asked during an interview with Sigur Rós on NPR, and it's the first piece of stocked footage Morisset uses, which he’ll continue to do interchangeably throughout Inni. The level of ambiguity surrounding the question was daunting enough to send the band members—and anybody listening—into a stupor. And while Burbank remarkably went on to defend himself in the blogosphere, you can almost feel this guy’s pain. What would you ask Sigur Rós? How do you describe their music? Any way you go about it, you’ll come off as trite and pretentious. Ethereal and celestial; comparable to glacial fields or magical forests; and, as trite as it comes, the oft-used descriptor: “God crying in heaven.” Yet altogether these words come to describe Sigur Rós. Morisset’s use of black and white seems almost a necessity for the concert portion of Inni, which ends up eating three-fourths of the film and astonishingly captures these descriptors. And as far as concert filmmaking goes, this is as groundbreaking and fitting as is comes. Smoke wisps across the stage, engulfing the band amidst the dim lighting, creating shrouded and angelic figures that float in an empty space. Jón Þór Birgisson’s (aka Jónsi) voice floats throughout the arena, more beautiful and breathtaking than the recordings due to open space, occupying every air molecule floating throughout the crowd and your local movie theater. The close-ups reveal the painful melancholy wreathing on Birgisson’s face as he composes his haunting and impenetrable vocals, while the long shots douse him in crossed spotlights, creating a symbolic image that seems too unimaginable to exist—much like Sigur Rós’ alteration of the Post-Rock genre.

As the first bit of color used in Inni, Burbanks head-scratching “question” is meant to create an air of mystery surrounding Sigur Rós. It’s a short clip, ending in a long, painful pause by the band members, and it immediately cuts into another Sigur Rós tune on stage. The stark contrast between this interview and the black-and-white anomaly described above lies in the image—not the message. Once back with Sigur Rós, we hear the low murmur of guitars set against an endless starry night sky. An optical illusion, the stars disappear and we’re once again on stage with Sigur Rós, and instantly there’s a connection. There’s more than meets the eye, most certainly, but really: there are no words for this band. They sing in their native Icelandic language, but also incorporate their own artificial language, Volenska—unintelligible sounds that can only rightfully exist within a Sigur Rós song. At no point do we understand what they’re saying, and at no point do we care. Remaining silent in Sigur Rós’ presence is the best way to honor them.

This is where Morisset gets into trouble. As far as concert films go, this is as good as it gets. If he wanted to go for broke, then he could’ve made it happen. 74 minutes is a great length for the concert film he wanted to make, but an inept length for the incorporated documentary. Morisset questionably intersperses clips of Sigur Rós in their early days of formation, extracting the level of choppiness and insecurity that comes with new bands. It’s a strange maneuver because it strips Sigur Rós of their cloak of invincibility, yet it does little to diagnose the band. If Morisset were hell bent on capturing the world’s most elusive band, he’d have one hell of a film. But the attempt to probe Sigur Rós’ past is as contradicting as it is meaningless, exposing the “ordinary guys” behind the band, yet doing nothing to define them as ordinary guys. If you’re gonna poke the dragon’s belly, be prepared to fight. But Morisset seems content in presenting brief images of Sigur Rós, not only contravening the film’s intention, but distracting from the more poignant portions of the film.

Not to say Sigur Rós’ story isn’t poignant, but how would we know from Inni? Certainly there’s a more structurally sound approach to this sort of film—an approach that would be far more rewarding than a simple concert film. Stripping that cloak of invincibility and pairing it alongside Sigur Rós’ unearthly live performances could prove to be a revelation…perhaps the world’s first opportunity to define the indefinable band. But, once stripped to its bare essentials, Inni’s greatest compliment is it simply presents Sigur Rós as both twitchy nerds performing for friends and untouchable gods of Post-Rock. Inni’s largest and detrimental failure can be seen during a performance of their song “Popplagið,” which is accompanied by a flashing shot of the band riding their bicycles in an empty parking lot, laughing and smiling at something unbeknownst to us. It’s as pensive as it is useless, representing a dynamic shift between academic and contemplative that’s nowhere near academic enough to render meaning and too contemplative for the performance’s sake. Instead of giving definition to the band, Morisset simply presents Sigur Rós to us as they are…which isn’t so bad. Luckily for him (and us), the performances eat up most of Inni, which could basically occupy Webster’s space for the definition of “beautiful.” The rest of the film? Perhaps it could occupy the space next to “forgettable.”