Movie review: ‘Inni’

In its first concert film, the band Sigur Rós was captured playing in unconventional places around its native Iceland. “Inni,” a follow-up of sorts, shows the group performing a two-night stint in 2008 at London’s Alexandra Palace venue.

The concerts were filmed in HD video, then transferred to 16-millimeter film and rephotographed, with director Vincent Morisset occasionally adding abstracted effects, giving the black-and-white footage a surprisingly supple look. The lustrous mix of tones nicely complements the yearning qualities of the music.

Sigur Rós fans are intensely devoted -- lore describes people passing out at shows in some sort of overwhelmed, ecstatic state -- and “Inni” finally gives some sense of why and how that might happen.

In between a few of the songs are brief snippets of video footage from throughout the band’s history, showing the musicians sometimes in jeans and T-shirts crowding onto some small club stage. The sequences serve in interesting contrast to the costumes the band’s members wear for the Alexandra Palace shows -- foppish feather collars, striped jackets and polka-dot socks.

Better than just a fans-only document and something more than a simple primer, “Inni” is somehow both an introduction and tribute.

“Inni.” No MPAA rating. Running time: 1 hour, 15 minutes. At the Downtown Independent, Los Angeles.