Björk: Biophilia Live (2014) on Netflix
NR20141h 37mDocumentaryMusic
Björk performs songs from her Biophilia album on a round stage at Alexandra Palace. The audience surrounds the musicians, and animation and nature footage run alongside the music.
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- Netflix3.9/5
- IMDb7.8/10538 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes77%
Trailer
Plot summary
The Biophilia tour, which began in 2011 and ran for three years, used instruments built for it, among them a musical Tesla coil, a pendulum harp and a hybrid of gamelan and celesta. Björk and her musicians stood on a stage in the middle of each venue, with the audience gathered all around them and free to move about and look at the instruments distributed across it. The tour reached Alexandra Palace in London in September 2013, and the performance there was filmed. Animated sequences and images of the natural world, ranging from greatly magnified tissue cells to forests and sand dunes, run through the songs.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Björk: Biophilia Live (2014)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- During the night of the concert at Alexandra Palace on 3 September 2013, several songs were retaken to perfect them for filming, including "Sonnets/Unrealities XI" and "Sacrifice", the tour's only song to use The Sharpsichord; Björk said the instrument's size and weight kept it from traveling.
- Several new instruments were created and used for Björk's Biophilia tour, including a musical Tesla coil, a midi-controlled gamelan-celesta hybrid, a pendulum harp and The Sharpsichord, perhaps the most unwieldy of them, made by Henry Dagg in the UK.
- Peter Strickland initially wanted to use 1970s nature photography in the film, but Björk wanted something modern and clinical, so the visuals link highly magnified tissue cells with overhead shots of forests and sand dunes.
- Björk chose the tour's format to show off the instruments and create an intimate feeling: she and the musicians played on a circular stage at the center of the venue, with the audience all around them and free to move about.
