Directed by Ísold Uggadóttir and filmed live at Lisbon’s Altice Arena, Cornucopia is not simply a tour document – it’s a defiant act of orchestral storytelling. The film captures Björk’s performance from start to finish without behind-the-scenes interviews, which would have been fascinating but would have likely disturbed the flow. This is not a look backstage but rather an immersion into Björk’s theatrical subconscious. The visuals, which were designed by long-time collaborators Tobias Gremmler and James Merry, come directly from the projections that were shown during the live performance, lending the film a hallucinatory coherence. Think of this less as documentation and more as a dreamscape: a multisensory, modern lanterna magica with a set list spanning from “Isobel” to “Fossora”.
In Björk’s cosmic universe, fashion functions as a narrative layer. For much of the show she floats in a tulle dress by Noir Kei Ninomiya that resembles an Arctic crustacean layered over a lace bodysuit by Sarah Regensburger. The musical ensemble wore Balmain couture with detours into pieces by Richard Malone and Kiko Kostadinov. The otherworldly masks are by Merry. “All final looks are always chosen by Björk,” says her long-time stylist, Edda Gudmundsdottir. “They have to resonate with her as they present the visual parts of her music.”
But beyond the visuals lies something more urgent. Instead of endless costume changes, Cornucopia is punctuated by a stark spoken-word interlude on climate change, – underscoring Björk’s deep-rooted social consciousness and environmental urgency. This isn’t spectacle for spectacle’s sake but rather a poetic plea.
The weight of it all was not lost on Uggadóttir. “Translating such a large work of art into film was daunting and, at times, quite humbling,” says the filmmaker. “But I was constantly moved and surprised by how exhilarating it was to make something so alive and singular.”
Sonically, Cornucopia is a platform for Björk’s high-concept musicality and avant-garde vision. On stage, she orchestrates a rare convergence of classical rigour and experimental flair – pairing Viibra, a septet of ethereal flautists with the 50-strong Hamrahlíð Choir, an Icelandic institution she once belonged to. Add to that Grammy-nominated percussionist Manu Delago, who conjures rhythm from bowls and a tank of water during “Blissing Me”, and the result is as ambitious as it is transportive. “She wanted the audience to feel held,” says musical director Bergur Þórisson. “The sound had to be spacious, emotional and womb-like.” Translated from a 360-degree format into Dolby Atmos, the result is enveloping; each aluphone chime and flute phrase hangs in the air like fog.
Visually, her collaborators deliver maximalist theatre. “It was about recapturing complexity without flattening it and keeping moments of intimacy too,” says Merry, who serves as the artist’s co-creative director. “I was thinking about the fans who didn’t see the show in person and my hope was to give them as close an experience to the live audience as possible. To feel surrounded by the visuals and occasionally overwhelmed by them too,” he says. “Hopefully we did it justice.”
US president Donald Trump is often regarded as a divisive disruptor whose principal political skill is pitting people against each other. Twice in the last fortnight, however, Trump has revealed another side to his character: a remarkable unifier, who has persuaded the diverse peoples of somewhat discontented countries to rally together as one.
Trump should not clear space on the Oval Office mantlepiece for that long-coveted Nobel Peace Prize yet, however. He didn’t bring people together on purpose – indeed, quite the opposite. In Canada and Australia, Trump accidentally helped floundering centre-left governments return to office and just as inadvertently damned his fellow conservatives in both countries to the kind of sensational defeat in which the party leader loses not only the election but also their seat. As recently as Trump’s inauguration on 20 January, Pierre Poilievre and Peter Dutton had every reason to believe that, by now, they would have congratulated each other on becoming prime minister of Canada and Australia respectively. Instead, both are unemployed.
The two situations are not precisely analogous. Trump has not, at least as of this writing, threatened to annex Australia – though he has imposed punitive tariffs on several Australian territories, including the Heard and McDonald Islands, which are inhabited only by seals and penguins, and are holders of no known trade surplus with the US. But just as Trump’s musings on Canada becoming America’s 51st state and his deriding of Mark Carney’s predecessor as “Governor Trudeau” galvanised Canadians to deliver the result that would vex him most, Australia’s incumbent Labor party won partly by tagging their conservative opponents as Trump surrogates.
Australia’s conservatives – the confusingly named Liberal Party – did not help themselves. Their leader, Peter Dutton, who is a doughty culture warrior, spoke highly of Trump. Dutton endowed the Liberals’ shadow indigenous affairs minister, senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, with an unsubtly foreshadowed portfolio for “government efficiency”; she spoke of wanting to “make Australia great again.”
It was foolish on a couple of levels. Recent polls show Australia’s enthusiasm for the US ebbing since Trump’s return – and Australia enforces a compulsory vote. It’s tough to win elections pandering to a base of seething weirdos marinated in social-media conspiracy theories. Australia has its own rumbustious billionaire with political aspirations: Clive Palmer, whose Trumpet of Patriots party spent a fortune in this election, did not win a single seat.
Tellingly, Peter Dutton’s concession speech was notably un-Trumpian. He was graceful, humble and generous, telling the re-elected prime minister, Anthony Albanese, that his single mother who raised him in public housing would be proud. In Australia, this was received with bemusement akin to that which might be prompted in Maga-land if Trump posted an image of himself enjoying the latest book by Hillary Clinton or indeed the latest book by anybody.
Centre-left parties across the Western world will be wondering whether invoking Trump might also work for them. In the UK, this month’s local elections were a triumph for Reform UK, the latest flag of convenience for inextinguishable Brexiter populist Nigel Farage. It would be surprising if the UK’s governing Labour Party has not pencilled in an early election for 2028 while Trump still occupies the White House, with a view to upholstering the country with pictures of Farage leering in Trump Tower’s gold elevator.
In the meantime, such parties have to find a way to govern in a world that is dominated by Trump. Mark Carney visited the White House this week – one hopes that he took flowers, much as Alice Cooper thanked the British moral campaigner Mary Whitehouse in the early 1970s for her efforts to get “School’s Out” banned from the BBC (it topped UK charts). Carney was firm but courteous, and hailed Trump as a “transformational president”. Perhaps during his stint as governor of the Bank of England, Carney acquired a taste for passive-aggressive British obituary euphemisms, in which an infamous crook will be recalled as an “enterprising businessman”, a pestilential lecher a “ladies’ man” and an illiterate yobbo a “man of simple tastes”.
Trump shortly faces two further foreign electoral tests. In presidential elections in Poland and Romania, Trumpism is on the ballot in some shape or form. Opponents of those candidates should not be shy about saying so.
