This video in many ways is very similar to Jamiroquai's video "Virtual Insanity", in that the beautiful seeming video tells a darker story, which reveals itself in small parts until the ending, which explains what has happened, making the watcher want to watch the video again with a different understanding. In this case, director Rocky Schenck, who as well as being a painter and photographer in his own time, often produces visually beautiful videos, and this is no exception, using a gold colour scheme and a special effect (diffuse glow) which exaggerates the whites of the video, creating a soft reflection in everything. The camera movement is very smooth and gentle, which is reflected the mood the video gives off. All this gives the video a soft, beautiful, dreamlike feeling, which is exactly what the director wants the video to feel like before looking deeper.
The video is about two characters, played by Kylie Minogue and Nick Cave, Elisa Day and an unnamed man respectively. Cave's character is stunned by Elisa's beauty, so visits her home a presumably share a night together. He brings her a red rose Day two, and asks her if she'd like to see where it comes from "If I show you the roses, will you follow". The next day, he takes Elisa to the river, kisses her, and kills her with a rock. He then places her in the river where the beautiful rose he picked grew, in the pose of Millais' painting Ophelia.
He places the rose in her mouth, and leaves.
The video gives away none of this, besides small hints. The ending is the only point when the reader can acknowledge what has just happened, and are then more likely to listen to the lyrics and understand the true story behind the video, as listening to lyrics while watching a music video for the first time is very difficult. The video gives us no idea to suspect that she lies dead in the river before the hints, which start too small for us to suspect anything. The first of these is when he picks up a rock, which seems to be the focus of the shot. This stood out for me when first watching the video, mainly due to how out of place it seemed, making much more sense after a second time. The next is a snake crawling over her (presumably dead by this point) body, which relates the video to The Garden of Eden, a beautiful garden which is ruined by humanity, and it is tainted in this too. The snake in the garden has the connotations of deceitfulness, which fits the video, which lies to us about the true nature of the narrative until the end. The next hint at this is a millipede, which crawls around her hair, carrying the same connotations as the snake. These both suggest to us that her body is now a part of nature, returning to the earth. It is only when he shuts her eyes at the end of the video that her death is made clear, the perfect image of the garden ruined, and the rock explained.
If I were to create a visually beautiful video, I would use techniques such as the slow camera movement and diffuse glow effect. I also like how the narrative reveals itself, only truly making sense after repeated viewings, and the order of the narrative, starting and ending with the story being told by Elisa in heaven. Playing with the time of events is a more interesting way of getting a simple story (which is normally all there is time for in a music video) told.
No comments:
Post a Comment