I think I've figured out where the music video for ‘t’ by iamamiwhoami might have been filmed
‘t’ is one of the most brilliant, if not the most brilliant, pieces by iamamiwhoami. Everything about it – the lyrics, the melody, the scenery – fills me with awe, even 15 years later.
There's a new world laid at your feet
We build an army from nothing
We raise our children to the beat of its comforting pounding
Aren't the lyrics breathtaking? Isn't Jonna Lee, standing naked outdoors wearing an aluminium foil crown and maintaining constant eye contact with the camera, hypnotic?
Like many of iamamiwhoami's videos, this one was also shot in nature. At the beginning, Jonna Lee stands knee-deep in water on a shore, then she moves through a flat, green landscape with few trees, stands in a kind of swamp, crosses a forest and dances on a cliff.
Over the years, fans of Jonna Lee have been able to identify many of the locations where her music videos were filmed; the greatest credit goes to the person behind @iambountyfun on Tumblr. I always find it very exciting to learn where the videos that captivate me so much were filmed.
‘t’ shows only untouched nature and nothing that couldn't be found in many places around the world. I remember there being speculation in the comments section at the time as to whether the video had been filmed in Greece.
There are videos by iamamiwhoami that were filmed outside Sweden, but there is no reason to believe that ‘t’ was not filmed in Sweden. And I think I know where.
Some time ago, I saw Andrei Tarkovsky's 1986 film ‘The Sacrifice’ (original Swedish title: Offret), a masterpiece of film history. The drama tells the story of a man who lives a quiet life with his young son and wife in a secluded location. When the radio announces the news of an impending nuclear war, the man is deeply distraught and asks himself existential questions. The film is bursting with symbolism and philosophical depth.
Let's take a look at some extracts from the film:
The natural landscape in ‘The Sacrifice’ is strikingly similar to that in ‘t’. Quite apart from the parallels between the two works, both deal with fundamental questions of human existence, address the theme of sacrifice, reject material values and have a circular structure...
I googled where ‘The Sacrifice’ was filmed: in Gotland, a Swedish island. Gotland is not far from Stockholm. In addition to the flat meadow landscape seen in ‘The Sacrifice’, which strongly reminds me of the scene in ‘t’ where Jonna Lee walks backwards, Gotland offers pretty much every type of landscape that appears in ‘t’.
If I am correct, the filming of ‘t’ could have taken place during a tour of Gotland. I like to imagine how the team explored the island back then, searching for and obviously finding the perfect locations.
‘The Sacrifice’ was filmed mainly in Närsholmen, an area on the south-east coast of Gotland. Cliffs, on the other hand, are mainly found in the north and west of the island.
Whether ‘t’ was filmed in Gotland or not, for me it was filmed there. I believe that until I am proven otherwise. There is too much evidence to suggest otherwise: the island combines all the types of landscape that can be seen in ‘t’, it can be reached from Stockholm, where Jonna Lee's team was based at the time, within four hours, and it is apparently a popular location for music videos by Swedish musicians. ‘I Follow Rivers’ by Lykke Li, for example, was filmed there.
A few years ago, Jonna Lee shared a behind-the-scenes photo from ‘t’, which fills me with great joy, especially since behind-the-scenes material from the time of the album ‘bounty’ is extremely rare. Nevertheless, I hope that this photo remains the only one we see of ‘t’, even though it is pretty cool. The music video is so transcendent and fantastic; it speaks for itself and needs no further context.
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