The fantastic worlds Michel Gondry and Björk created over the span of six videos have centered on one theme: nature, of her world, our world, and its people. In their as yet final collaboration, Gondry and Björk amass their stories into a grand finale. Bachelorette is the story of a girl's story. As she remarks in the tragedy's introduction, "One day I found a big book buried deep in the ground. I opened it, but all the pages were blank. Then, to my surprise, it started writing itself: 'One day, I found a big book buried deep in the ground...'"
Björk, as Bachelorette, follows her own autobiography, My Story, into the city as it writes her story, one step ahead of each event. She finds true love the moment Victor, the publisher, reads, "I knew that my heart was his and that I would love him forever and ever . . ."
After its publication, gobs of people become entranced in the story. Her books sell endlessly. Success is at hand for the girl from the forest. Victor and Bachelorette then strike a deal to get her story on Broadway.
But as the song's grinding beat portends, this story has no bloodless ending: Mother Nature wants her book back. On opening night of her play, everything unravels. As the show progresses, it loops inside of itself - another one of Gondry's fractals (see Let Forever Be or Les Jupes). Victor, sitting in the audience, is disgusted and becomes estranged from the entire affair. Outside, tabloids announce their break-up, writing, "Bachelorette finds herself wandering in the woods."
As the story unfolds, words literally disappear from every copy of My Story, forcing readers to dump their books onto the street in frustration. Soon the publisher vanishes completely out of the book Bachelorette found in the forest. In a visually stunning move, Gondry presents this outcome in reality: sitting in the audience, Victor literally becomes a shrub. By the same token disappears the audience and eventually the entire play itself from under Björk's feet. When the foliage threatens to take her life as well, she surrenders the book, and returns to whence she came: the forest.
One emerges from first viewing the video as if from a motion picture. Many questions arise: What was the purpose of this book in the Bachelorette's life? Was the Bachelorette merely a character in her own story? Who is the author of this story: the Bachelorette? God? Nature? Eventually Björk's character returns to the forest; perhaps this is an interpretation of our lives on Earth?
Nevertheless, Michel Gondry's genius is realized in the tragedy of the Bachelorette. In the black-and-white real world, Gondry tells the story in the form of an early motion picture. Inside the theater, vivid colors create a separate reality as the story is told in real-time. The book's prophetic tale is key in the play's presentation. The words are omnipresent: projected onto the trees, under Björk's footsteps, inside the stairs to the publishing company, etc. As Bachelorette's world closes in, each successive part of the play is told in ever smaller scale. After discarding the book, Björk's character is instantly free and back in the boundless - and colorful - woodland.
Q&A with François Nemetä
Technical stats gleaned from a 2006 e-mail conversation with Gondry's then-assistant:
Filmed in 1997, a few weeks before Deadweight. There were 2 days of Bolex plus 3 days in a Los Angeles cinema studio on 35mm, plus 2 days in a French animation studio on a Debrie 35. They also shot in an L.A. train station, a park, and a few restaurants in downtown. The Chicago views are stock footage.
Fun fact: Nemetä kept a copy of the "My Story" book cover. Partizan founder Georges Bermann has the "big book" in his Paris office.
Compared to Jòga, this looks like it was a massive production, where both Björk, Michel and the entire crew worked extremely hard. Who worked the hardest?
ME of course ! and the whole crew as well. ;-) You're right it was like a mini movie. a kind of mini nightmare, with all possible film techniques, and all the kinds of shooting (exterior shots with extras in black and white in the city / exterior colour, handheld camera in the forest (somewhere in a LA park); studio / crane shots with extras / many mini-sets / animation shots / post production on stock footage / 2nd unit shots...
the 1st AD impressed me. I don't remember his name, he was an american guy, very good at his job. I thought "ok. I could never do that - I'll stop being an AD soon" oh and the art department crew as well.
