Bjork and Michel Gondry Reunite on the Moon
Björk and director Michel Gondry were fellow creatives on the journey up the ladder of fame when they first collaborated on the video for 1993’s “Human Behavior.” And now, 18 years later, they’ve reunited with their careers not down and out, exactly, but definitely reduced to smaller, stranger circumstances. For Gondry, still licking his wounds from the mainstream mauling suffered while working on The Green Hornet, reconnecting with his Icelandic vinur after many years must have felt like freedom. As for Björk, she seems to have turned her no-doubt fascinating and elvish back on whatever remains of the traditional music industry, choosing to record her latest project, Biophilia, on her own and releasing it as a multimedia iPad-enabled app experience. For the “Crystalline” clip, Gondry indulges in the sort of boyish, OCD thumb-twiddling that has always interested in him more than, say, the logistics of making Seth Rogen appear to be a legitmate crime-fighter, stop-motioning the hell out of a lunar landscape in the midst of a crystal thunderstorm while Björk, in a fetching red afro wig, Dougies dreamily from on high. It’s equal parts bewitching and bold, the very sort of thing a younger, chunkier Rogen might have appreciated during a midnight showing at the Laser Dome. It’s also a welcome return to form from two like-minded artists who tend to do their best work when the stakes are simpler.
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