Björk: Biophilia Live and other music films at the London Film Festival

Director Peter Strickland talks to Nick Roddick about his surprising collaboration with Björk
Passion project: Björk’s Biophilia is a hymn to humanity and nature
Nick Roddick15 September 2014

Director Peter Strickland has two films premiering one after the other at this year’s festival and, frankly, he’s not sounding as happy as one might expect about it. “It creates a lot of trouble with my stress levels,” he says.

First is his film record of the final concert of Björk’s Biophilia tour. Two-and-a-half hours later there’s the premiere of his third feature, The Duke of Burgundy, which has been selected for the Official Competition.

Like most of Björk’s work, Biophilia is hard to describe. Preceded by a voiceover from David Attenborough, it is a sonic thrill-ride seeking to “reunite humans with nature”. In practice, this means Björk pacing the stage in an extraordinary sculpted cream dress, backed by an Icelandic choir and musicians, while bright images teem across the screens above them.

Strickland and co-director/editor Nick Fenton researched their own imagery to add to the film, finding synergy in the most unlikely of places. “For example, there’s an overhead shot of geological formations, and then we found some microscopic imagery of rectal tissue that looked exactly the same…”

If this sounds like the Icelandic diva left the boys to do their own thing, that, says Strickland, is pretty much how it went. “The initial thing was her sending long emails about what she didn’t want but after that she was surprisingly hands-off. What she didn’t want was anything didactic. I guess she didn’t want to be like Sting: you know, ‘Look at what we’ve done to the planet’. She clearly didn’t want any finger-wagging.”

That doesn’t mean that there isn’t a great deal of passion in the film: Biophilia is essentially a hymn to humanity and nature mediated through music. It is an interactive project, with the concert linked to apps and a website. And the film? “I see it as a kind of service: I’m there to facilitate her vision,” says Strickland, “but that’s fine — it’s what you do.”

Björk: Biophilia Live is at Odeon West End on Thu Oct 9, 6pm, and Curzon Soho on Fri Oct 10, 9pm.

Five more films about music at the LFF

Whiplash

Odeon Leicester Square, Wed Oct 15; Odeon West End, Thu Oct 16; Hackney Picturehouse, Sat Oct 18

A music teacher plays mind games with a vulnerable young student who is desperate to succeed.

Hit it! Miles Teller and JK Simmons in Whiplash (Pic: Daniel McFadden/Sony Pictures Classics)

Metamorphoses

Cine Lumiere, Thu Oct 9; Vue Islington, Sat Oct 11; Odeon Covent Garden, Mon Oct 13

Music plays a major role in maverick French director Christophe Honoré’s adaptation of Ovid.

Nas: Time Is Illmatic

Ritzy, Thu Oct 9; Odeon Covent Garden, Sat Oct 11

A film exploring the background to and charting the creation of the classic 1994 hip-hop album.

The Tales of Hoffmann

BFI Southbank, Sat Oct 18

Powell and Pressburger’s dazzling 1951 version of Offenbach’s opera, starring Moira Shearer.

Tokyo Tribe

Curzon Soho, Thu Oct 9; Rich Mix, Sat Oct 11

Tokyo. The future. Gangs rule the city. Where better for an action movie-cum-hip hop musical?

Browse all London Film Festival articles

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