Bjork’s Cornucopia

Year: 2025
Director: Ísold Uggadóttir

Well, it’s not often that I see a film, let alone see it the day after its release. Fair play to the Curzon in little old Knutsford for putting it on so soon.

Baldly, this is a film of a 2023 gig in Lisbon, part of the Björk Orchestral Tour, which spanned several years, following release from worldwide touring restrictions. The opening credits give a statement of intent, of the desire to create an immersive experience within (relatively) small venues. Dive in! For that immersion is there from the off. Literally spectacular projections envelop with colour rich, your body resonating with the sound. This is a film for seeing on the big screen. Indeed, it takes a while before the realisation comes that this really was before a live audience.

Welcome to Björkworld, for it is a unique habitat. Forms morph; humanoid, flesh, fish, fungi. The imagery of the cover of her ’22 album, Fossora, provides the starting point for the projections, and this is a Sensual World. Hearing this particular sequence of her songs, brings home the sensuality, delivery lingering on key words; it had never struck me before just how many body parts crop up in her lyrics. The habitat is simultaneously arctic and tropical, peppered with imagined birdsong and insect life.

Björkworld is home to unique instruments – a magnetic harp, a circular flute – some created for her needs; here, the guitar has long been extinct. Björkworld is peopled by satyrs and a celestial choir. For the visual experience extends to the musicians too, who are enhanced by masks, fascinators, make-up. It struck this local folkie that each flautist sported a hairdo that probably cost more than the fee we are able to pay our guest artists at our folk club. It does work, mind. For the six-strong band of flutes, prance and weave, almost as if the choreography was more important than the music. Briefly, I wondered whether they were only dancing and not playing, but the credits put me right on that one. I suspect that working for Bjork could be more demanding than being in The Magic Band or performing with James Brown; your skills must be multifarious – for multiple senses. Likewise, the choir of forty (imagine the cost of this!) sway naturally yet undoubtedly preordained; there’s some room for improvisation on the night, but not much, for this is a tight ship. But at the end of A Hidden Place, there is an exclamation of joyous acknowledgement to the choir from Ms Guðmundsdóttir. I think she may be a more rewarding employer than Don van Vliet!

It’s worth pondering the medium. This is a film of a concert, rather than the gig itself. I wonder how they compare. Does this give us an idea of what it was like to be in that Lisbon venue? Maybe that isn’t even the intention. Inevitably, the act of direction and editing means that someone else has decided to some extent what you will take away from the show. When there is so very much going on, that is significant. No-one would have felt short-changed if there had just been musicians and instruments. I must confess at times the visuals were over-stimulating; I could have been quite happy with the dancing flautists and expressive choir. The film often focuses on those remarkable projections, but if you were in the audience, you might decide that you would like to dwell on working out what the hell is going on with those bespoke instruments and how they are played. The filmgoer doesn’t get that option. That said, the filmgoer is getting a vantage on the stage that will be better than all but the first few rows of the auditorium. And, wow, the audio in the cinema was truly wonderful.

It has not been deliberate that I have dwelt so much on the musicians, the choreography, the instruments, the projections, but don’t get the idea that Björk is at all lost in this; there’s no doubt who is the centrepiece for it could not be otherwise. She is one singular artist. Visually, the costume she has chosen, almost wider than she is tall, means she cuts an odd figure, almost ungainly. Her movements appear more awkward than the others on stage. But her vocal delivery commands attention. No-one sings like Björk. I would imagine most voice coaches would drum that out of you. Her phrasing is extraordinary; she takes breath within notes; she finds ways to extrapolate simple words into manifold consonants; and, I’ll say it again, it is so very sensual. Her own backing vocals vault over the melody; that is all very Joni.

Genres become irrelevant when talking about Björk. It would be lumpen to categorise this as a pop or rock concert. It’s certainly a spectacle. We’ve come a long way from the first days of talking about multimedia. I’ve nodded to a few of the absolute greats as reference points in this review and, certainly, Bjork is up there with each of them, and she ain’t finished yet, I’m sure.

Might appeal to people who enjoyed:

Well, I wouldn’t want to judge. She’s such a one-off, that interest could come from any angle.

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