I caught the first 1:40 of this video pre-roll “ad” on youtube for a Savages “Flying to Berlin” video .
It has a great many things going on.
It’s almost NSFW, but deceptively so.
Here is the set up:
Electro track fades in and we are met by two towheaded aryan children who approach a mysterious black box.
Imagine the pitch for this video.
The director, wearing sunglasses inside no doubt, paints his vision for the artist.
Boy gets a C-3PO hand. Girl gets a wiry hairdo.
Cut to Versailles that is now a server farm for the Empire (read: not galactic) and introduce extended family.
Now sis gets her own C-3PO hand and a super fit bod to match. Obligatory butt shot. Side view with exposed breast.
Her lover is a brunette and she’s a spitter with modest breasts, loose fitting blouse.
Additional nip view.
Late model luxury sedan.
Floating Super Drone.
Camera pull back shows pseudo-scientists in lab coats studying a surveillance screen of angry mostly caucasian youth moshing in slow mo to the electro track.
Then, inexplicably, the researchers turn and see a floating ball of M-16’s.
Cut to woman laying on marble slab, dimly lit, covered in a grey sheet.
Dark haired young adult male staring into a mirror back in the Versaille-like palace.
Back to hanger where we find the C-3PO handed man pointing his finger at a bunch of his clones.
Cut to dimly lit hanger. Skeleton in sovereign regalia.
And.
Scene.
The discussion that follows might sound something like this.
I have no idea what is going on but I like it. It’s like Empire Strikes Back meets Mulholland Drive.
Yes. It is very disruptive. The electro track is the drone note for the visual melody.
A dream box holds the images together. The shared imaginings of the siblings spread out in a nightmarish speculative future.
Brevity and execution of concept make this video powerful. Echoes (or appropriation) of Matthew Barney’s aesthetics (without the masonic/fantasty), JG Ballard and of course Lynch.
A Coat of Red Paint In Hell 