[2] The entirety of the lyrics to The Dull Flame of Desire are an English translation of a Russian poem by Fyodor Tyutchev, from its original appearance in the Andrei Tarkovsky film Stalker (1979).

It was first reported on the official site of Antony and the Johnsons that Anohni and Björk had shot a video for "Dull Flame of Desire".

[3] A few months later Björk revealed in an interview that she and Anohni had recorded themselves singing the song against a green screen in New York,[4] and that she had sent the raw footage to three directors who had taken part in the video contest for her previous single "Innocence".

I thought this would be a good way of doing it.It was later announced that Christoph Jantos (Berlin), Masahiro Mogari (Tokyo), and Marçal Cuberta Juncà (Girona) were the chosen directors.

In the first part (directed by Masahiro Mogari), a lot of little white dots are moving until they form Björk and Anohni's faces.