How to Destroy Angels
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New music from Trent and his chick. Quite freaking out video but I like the song:
- CygnusZero40
Too dull, too gloomy.
- 762mm0
really cool.
- JazX0
major timeline...
- lukus_W0
I'm not particularly keen on a Gothic aesthetic - but this was quite classy. The exposition is artful and pretty genuinely menacing. The shot of the candle flame close to the paper - as a premonition of what's to come - is quite a beautiful touch.
Gets a bit tacky when the dead woman starts singing - but to be honest, I found it a welcome relief from the clinical shots in the preceding scenes.
Maybe - if you're filming a dead person talking - it's worth only focusing on shots on part of the body (e.g. corner lips) rather than whole face? .. otherwise it's difficult for the viewer to consider the person dead (and take it seriously). Maybe bad-dubbing would have worked here? Perhaps a wider camera angle would have made provided a more unusual context for the dead woman singing, highlighting the oddness of the scene? In any case, I think these scenes feel like they've been filmed too conventionally.
I quite like the fact it ends sharply - but, for all this promise, the climax doesn't quite deliver. Maybe the ending itself needed more sharply pointed weirdness / randomness / madness to provide genuine surprise. I definitely think the climax should have provided a stronger contrast with the slow build-up.
I think the director could have aimed to leave more tantalizing questions in the mind of the viewer; questions that demand answers, rather than just leave the viewer idly wondering and moving on. The styling is saying 'epic', but maybe there wasn't enough meaning behind what was being shown.
In terms of great music videos, I think this one is a case of close, but no cigar.