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For those of you who haven't seen this video, no spoilers. Those of you who have seen it will know what it's all about, and why it created some controversy back in 2001. I've just seen it for the first time. And the second time. And the third time. And so on. In fact, it's becoming compulsive viewing.

Internet commentators have adopted a variety of viewpoints about the song itself and the video. One Amazon reviewer calls the song (from the album Vespertine) "a celebration of an achingly secret love". A YouTube viewer (having watched a brief extract) makes a rather more down-to-earth comment: "i masterbated to this video..haha". It's a shame that he can't spell. Another says "She is so out of this world.... simply beautiful. Everything about her." That's better.

And so the debate can begin.

Do I find the video compulsive for all the wrong reasons? Or are all the "wrong reasons" perfectly acceptable? That's a massive and continuing debate in itself, and however relaxed we become, there's always the temptation to add "Actually, I enjoyed that immensely." I'd put it this way. When young Miss Guðmundsdóttir first stuck her head above the parapet, we had to take some time to get used to the sight of a funny Icelandic girl wearing an assortment of winter garments and sporting some very odd hairstyles. It wasn't until her MTV Unplugged session - and a certain yellow dress - that she started to look in any way "sexy". But the MTV recording doesn't prepare the viewer for this. And "sexiness" hardly has anything to do with it.

How can I say this without seeming horribly unfair? Björk isn't "conventionally" beautiful. Put her in a line-up of Hollywood starlets and she might look out of place. But that makes her not only distinctive but wonderfully "ordinary" in an extraordinary way. And that's because this slightly more ordinary person then makes extraordinary music - which enthralls us - and then goes on to make the most extraordinary video.

I'm not sure that it takes "courage" to do what she's done. There's a barrier to cross, but once it's been crossed, everything seems "normal" again. Quite simply, you're in an altered universe. So, assuming that she was comfortable to cross the barrier, we have to consider the art, and the reaction to it.

Let's take the reaction first. Predictably, almost, the video was banned. That's society's stock reaction to those who cross barriers. Adjectives tumble out - let's not list them here, because the reactions tend to be clichés. Then, let's visit the world of film, and ask why so many young actresses end up doing nude scenes. Why don't the men strip off in the same way? Perhaps it's because the industry is still dominated by the male gaze. Perhaps.

So, here's the bottom line on the art. It's breathtaking. Most obviously, it expresses pleasure and pain - which is presumably why some commentators imagine it as the build-up to an intense sexual encounter. But delve beneath the oh-so-obvious surface, and pleasure and pain become joy and sorrow. And because so much of great art relies more on overstatement than understatement (because art demands interaction), joy and sorrow are so often writ large. This video is no exception to that rule.

For me, the defining moments start with the terrifying introspection "I love him, I love him, ...", which begins in Björk's head and only later emerges from her lips - all the fear and sorrow of unrequited love acted out astonishingly. And then, with fierce determination, she moves towards positivity, and to possibly some of the most wonderful moments ever captured on video. Indescribable beauty - and I'm referring to her radiant smile.

Let's look at it this way. I may grow used to seeing the video, but I think I'll always marvel at the boldness of the metaphors. Those factors concerning the body - they may express physical pain or pleasure, but their underlying purpose - surely - is to juxtapose great joy with great anguish, to be prepared to sacrifice everything for a love that may never materialise.

Art demands interaction - and art needs to be intense. Society has moved centuries beyond the polite encounters in drawing rooms, in which - for example - someone played a pianoforte rather delicately while others reclined in a state of refined elegance. That was always a limited scenario, one that worked for just the privileged classes - and even then the presentation concealed the undercurrents. To switch to the other extreme - a bold statement of raw emotion, with the physical body itself as the landscape - is brave indeed, and vital in a quite inspirational way.

Seek it out and decide for yourselves.

Thank you so much for that!! There might me spoilers in this, so go find that video first!!

Although I'm a big Björk fan I haven't seen that clip! So I started looking and found the vid on dailymotion, which starts off with a warning: "gross out, sex/nudity". Then we see the MTV logo, with Most controversial, nr. 2. Last week I've been grossed out by Rammstein's forbidden pussy video, so I braced myself. Pagan Poetry is my favourite song on Vespertine, an album which I both loathe and adore. I keep discovering new things on it, if I can talk myself past my disdain for the weaker/kitschy songs.

Björk is the ultimate (triple) Scorpio: "I have to re-create the universe every morning when I wake up. And kill it in the evening, which is a bit outrageous, but there you go." Constantly reinventing herself and her music. A woman of extremes. Sex and death and huge helpings of symbolics. And almost all of her video's are pure, bizarre, art... as is this one!!!

First thought: "wow, that's very clever!". The abstract shapes transform into two "normal" images of Björk, before going back to the now throbbing and wobbling abstract figures, who are charged with quite a different meaning after that. Mass turns into lines and specs of colour, like travelling inside a whirlwind Kandinsky painting (who wanted to transform music/sounds into imagery, as Björk does)

Then: Björk naked! All wild, black hair flying around, she looks like a pixie version of Frida Kahlo to me! What you say Octo: wow. That smile, and an almost volcanic force of joy and power and energy! Then the "I love him" sequence which makes her break down at first (she ís a great actress, although I didn't like Dancer in the Dark that much), all confused and sad: does she love someone who she shouldn't? Because she is determined to keep him "all for myself", meaning right now she has to share him?

I adore that second "this time I'm gonna keep him all to himself" when she peeks at us from below that mass of hair, like a naughty little girl. And then the needle and the pearls and the piercing I've heard about from a friend, who really wanted it (don't know if she did get it..): there's a version with black ribbons, which makes your back look like a corset.
Björk uses white pearls in her video (and makes us guess whether it's her back or somebody elses). Funny, those pearls come back in another Vespertine song, Coccoon (which didn't remind me of a pearl necklace but of, well, something else):

a train of pearls, cabin by cabin
is shot precisely across an ocean
from a mouth ...
from a mouth ...
from a mouth of a girl like me
to a boy ... to a boy ... to a boy

Lovely, lovely video. But why is this so controversial? Because of the extreme piercing, the few bits of nudity (which are so much more tasteful than all those fake bouncing boobs you see in practically every MTV video?), the suggested erotica? I guess it must be her very real passion and courage that's shocking to some people, sadly. What you say very well Octo:
A bold statement of raw emotion, with the physical body itself as the landscape.


And it all fits her words so wonderfully:
on the surface simplicity
but the darkest pit in me
is pagan poetry
pagan poetry


Thanks for a much needed dose of inspiration!

p.s: ever seen her, very pregnant, with her punkband Kukl? Don't want to throw oil on the compulsive obsession though..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmA2k4QVmdw

SPOILERS!!!!!


@Seng: look closer on the moving shapes. the video is actually made of Bjork's sex tape she recorded with her husband (it can be seen all too clear when you keep that in mind), and the moment when her face is shown is her climax. Hence the controversy

Really?

spoilers yet again

I could see what the moving blobs were doing, even without that interesting piece of backgroundstory.. a dirty mind is a joy forever.

Wiki only says this:
The music video for "Pagan Poetry", directed by Nick Knight, which as stated on its making of page "is about a woman preparing herself for marriage and for her lover". It was also one of Björk's most controversial. It features Björk in a dress designed by Alexander McQueen, covering only the lower portion of her body. The upper portion of the dress seems to be pearls laced through her skin. The video also features a graphic display of body piercing, including a corset piercing on a model's back. The video was banned by MTV in the United States, but was eventually shown in unedited form on MTV2 in a presentation of the "20 Most Controversial Music Videos".

Apparently it's not nr. 2 on MTV's list, that's good. And the piercing is not hers, ofcourse. Although I wouldn't have been that surprised if it was hers.

Nick Knight would be a wonderful name for a porn actor or director, hehe.
There's an explanation of the video on a Björk site:
http://unit.bjork.com/specials/gh/SUB-07/making/
Knight gave Björk a Sony Mini DV camera and asked her to shoot her own private scenes. “To try and do an honest job of documenting or presenting somebody’s intimate love life, there really is no cause for me to be there whatsoever,” Knight says. “She asked me to make a film about her love life, so I merely gave it back to her and said ‘Film your love life.’”

Edit: whoa, check out this other movie by her husband, the Cremaster Cycle:
http://www.cremaster.net/cc_trailer/cc_trail4.htm

Yes, that swiftly becomes apparent at the beginning, but then who cares about an orgasm here or there? And so, given that this is about a secret love - presumably not yet consummated - she's employed her real life at the very deepest level as an imaginary contribution to a work of "fiction".

The wonderful radiant smile I was referring to comes towards the end, when the backing singers are singing "She loves him" and Björk is standing with her arms raised, looking off camera. Magic.

Edit: No, no - I think I've got it wrong. "This time, I'm gonna keep him all to myself" - which suggests that there was a previous time. Hence the start of the video. Hmm?