The Wanderer

The dramatic landscape of Norway is on full display in the music video for Dead Movie Animals’ The Wanderer. Directed by Henrik Lande Anderson, the video perfectly compliments the duo’s meditative track to create a harmonic audio/visual experience.

Shot over a period of two years, Anderson centres the changing seasons of Norway in this music video. Verdant, rolling hills of springtime give way in an instant to winter’s cold embrace, and the thick blankets of snow soon yield to a bracing wind from autumn. Amidst the changing seasons works the titular wanderer, a hardy worker constructing a dwelling in the changing environment. Behind the scenes, the project Anderson filmed was the conversion of a German WW2 bunker into a sanctuary, a project of reclamation over time. There’s a thoughtful juxtaposition in the filming of the natural and man-made worlds, a sort of harmony being found between them; seasons may change but the wanderer continues on all the same. Growth becomes a relevant and interesting theme as Anderson returns to the image of a tree growing through time lapse photography. Similarly, the bunker project continues on, taking shape and ‘growing’ from something uninhabitable to a welcoming space. Man is rendered as part of nature in The Wanderer, altering the face of the landscape but ultimately not becoming separate from it.

It would be remiss not to acknowledge the precise filmmaking on display in The Wanderer. The effect of the changing Nordic landscape is achieved through masterful editing and thoughtfully planned photography - specifically, the changing seasons are captured seamlessly through the camera’s unchanging position. Even more impressively, the wanderer’s position in the frame is matched perfectly through the seasonal changes, maintaining a sense of consistency between the shots. The effect is magical, alluding to the power of time and its relationship with nature. Perhaps the film is alluding to the timelessness of nature compared to man - the only evidence that the footage was shot over two years comes from the building renovation. The footage suits Dead Movie Animals’ music perfectly, and the two work harmoniously to create a compelling audio visual experience. Dead Movie Animals’ ambient soundscape is complimented excellently by Anderson’s filmmaking, and the result is a thoughtful meditation on our relationship with the outside world.

There’s a kind of melancholy in The Wanderer, the sands of time so visibly falling as reflected in the changing of the seasons. Perhaps it’s a reminder to start working on our own projects that will take time, or to take stock of the world around us. Time marches on and we are but wanderers in this world, afforded only a limited number of seasons. Rather than fighting against time, we could learn to appreciate the changing seasons, to admire the ancient beauty of our planet, and to live within nature.