We start out with the camera panning along the floor until we run across somebody’s bare foot. Intrigued, the camera works its way up the attached leg (very hairy, probably a guy, no promises), along the outer edge of a bare pelvis (oh my, didn’t see that coming), diagonally across the chest and onto the face of Gotye.
He and his hair look very sad.
He starts singing, keeping his mournful eyes cast downward so we don’t forget that he’s disappointed about something. Since the camera stays on his face for a very long time, we can’t help but notice that his mouth is very interestingly-shaped. Maybe this is why he changed his name from Walter to Gotye, so his name could be as interesting as his mouth. Who knows.
Anyway, my orifice study is interrupted when Gotye suddenly looks up, and we see that he has stunningly-green eyes. This totally changes the meaning of the video, so I adjust my notes as Gotye warbles on in a low, quite tone that would be soothing if we weren’t fully aware that the man is completely naked.
Suddenly, we cut away to some invisible hand drawing a brown line across the screen. Then lots of other lines come scrawling in from all directions, meeting up with their little friend in the middle, creating some pleasant but slightly boring little triangle shapes. Then we’re back with Gotye, who is currently not singing any lyrics. Maybe he’ll tell us what all that triangle mess was all about?
Nope. We go back to the shapes, and now they are being filled in by more invisible hands, using lots of different colors. The imagery looks vaguely familiar, like its hinting at some particular artistic method that I would know about if I actually had any culture. While the artwork continues to spread, Gotye resumes his tragic tale about loss, mismanagement, and forgetfulness.
Hold up, now the spreading artwork has moved from wherever it was to the wall directly behind Gotye, getting dangerously close to his unprotected and somewhat pale skin. Gotye doesn’t seem to care, though, because it’s time for the part of the song where he sings really loud and high, so he does, and that probably distracts him from noticing that the artwork has jumped onto his various limbs and is busily filling in its own colors.
While Gotye continues with his angst over accusations and regret, the odd little triangles completely cover his body in the pattern that reminds me I shouldn’t have dropped out of college. He finishes up this bit of the song and just stands there, blending into the wall as the camera pans back, allowing us to see that Gotye has a companion, a woman off to his left who is also standing and blending.
It’s fairly safe to assume that they know each other, since they are both naked and covered in similar artwork, so they probably run around in the same social circle and go to the same clubs. She’s facing the wall, though, so either she’s done something bad or she left her glasses on the nightstand.
The woman turns her head to face Gotye, and we see that it’s Kimbra, and we also see that she has something to say, starting out with that classic intro line of being screwed over. As Gotye either winces in shame or is just blinking to keep the paint out of his eyes, Kimbra moves in and sing-growls her rebuttal directly into Gotye’s decorated ear.
Then Gotye launches back into the loud part of the song as Kimbra harmonizes beside him, creating a nice singing painting that probably excited the stoners of the world immensely. Eventually, Kimbra has second thoughts about making music with the man that done her wrong, so she heads back to her part of the canvas and re-faces the wall. As Gotye finishes out the song, we watch the paint slowly disappear from Kimbra’s body, until nothing is left of the paint or their relationship.
Nice, eh?
Click Here to Watch the Video on YouTube.
No comments:
Post a Comment