Burzum: Dunkelheit (1996)

Burzum: Dunkelheit (1996)

Dir. David Palser

The only official video release (to date) by Burzum was quickly bought by fans, myself included, and just as quickly divided them. Sure, you could've made it yourself with a home video camera and a meagre knowledge of video editing, but wasn't that the point?

The shaky, conceptual imagery perfectly suited the underlying ethos, capturing and/or translating a resonance and mood that conveyed the dark duality of nature. It's just one song, Dunkelheit from the Filosofem (1995) album, but the chosen visuals complemented the audio, which was a mesmerising minimalism wedded to a harsh but pleasing experimentalism. The repetition, too, played into that.

I've noticed that an individual's feelings toward the work tend to reflect their feelings toward nature; whether or not that holds true with a larger sample size I can't say, but I'd be interested in finding out.