The Beauty of Gemina-Stairs (official music video)
This music video tells the tale of a young boy living in the confines of a futuristic cult on an island, who, after the death of his mother, makes a daring escape & builds a boat to leave the island forever.
The young boy is represented as being more creative, free-thinking & moral than the adults around him & these qualities give him power where he otherwise would have none. The first shot we see of the young boy is a low angle, which makes him look important & in control, despite the fact that he is small. His overall is dark blue, whereas everyone else is clad in black, which shows how he is different from those around him. The next shot we see is the child ascending a staircase, holding hands with his mother. They enter a room & the mother has a blank facial expression, just like all the other adults. He brings her a glass of water & looks at her with a caring expression, showing that children are more receptive to emotional states than they are given credit for. he is then shown drawing a picture of a boat & his mother's face changes to a smile. She (& all the other adults) look blank & emotionless for most of the video, but the mise-en-scene of this shot shows that, even in this emotionally stunted atmosphere, a mother can still find joy through her child & his creativity. The next shot is in slow motion & it is a medium close-up of the mother kissing the child lovingly & smiling contentedly, as he is the best thing in her repetitive, boring life that is void of sensation & happiness, save for the joy brought by her son.
The next shot shows the dark, staring faces of the adults, which represents adults as being almost like robots; stationary & basically dead until they are needed, with little vitality. The slow pan over their relentlessly staring faces hammers this point home. This cuts to the mother working at her desk, surrounded by other people working, but she is working on schematics for the boat her son designed, showing how children can provide sparks of inspiration for the adults around them. Older people are stuck in their ways & sometimes struggle to break free of the societal constraints they have been conditioned into, so children can be a huge help for them, as their minds are free & untainted by internalised evil.
We then see the boy with two other children playing with an origami boat floating in a water basin. This boat is then taken & crushed in the hand of a faceless adult. The children were having fun & being creative, but the adults in a position of power stifle & crush this creativity, as they do not want individuals, but just more clones of themselves.
The next shot shows the mother being taken by two other adults into a small room. They shout at her & throw her boat schematics at her in a rage, presumably because any ideas about leaving the island are seen as treason. This representation of adults shows that they oppress not only children, but each other. The adults receiving the oppression just accept & internalise it, as they always have, whereas the children are able to rebel & escape this cycle of abuse.
The next shot is a close up of a shouting man, presumably barking orders that are televised throughout the complex on the island. Then we see two of the other adults sharing a kiss but being dragged away from each other, further reinforcing the representation in this video of adults oppressing each other. The woman then looks blankly into the distance, not into the camera.
Then we are shown an exterior of the complex, an ultra-modern sleek building but shot in very unsaturated colour so it looks dull. The windows seem to glow against the dullness, perhaps signifying that the people inside the building are not yet entirely void of light.
Then we pan into a washroom where various adults are composing themselves, but the mother of the boy is sitting on the floor looking forlorn & being comforted by another woman as a man hands her a bottle of pills. Then we cut to a sly-looking person looking into the camera, before returning to the mother, now dead after an overdose of pills. Her son crawls towards her. He is now all alone in the world, but he understands what his mother wanted of him.
This music video tells the tale of a young boy living in the confines of a futuristic cult on an island, who, after the death of his mother, makes a daring escape & builds a boat to leave the island forever.
The young boy is represented as being more creative, free-thinking & moral than the adults around him & these qualities give him power where he otherwise would have none. The first shot we see of the young boy is a low angle, which makes him look important & in control, despite the fact that he is small. His overall is dark blue, whereas everyone else is clad in black, which shows how he is different from those around him. The next shot we see is the child ascending a staircase, holding hands with his mother. They enter a room & the mother has a blank facial expression, just like all the other adults. He brings her a glass of water & looks at her with a caring expression, showing that children are more receptive to emotional states than they are given credit for. he is then shown drawing a picture of a boat & his mother's face changes to a smile. She (& all the other adults) look blank & emotionless for most of the video, but the mise-en-scene of this shot shows that, even in this emotionally stunted atmosphere, a mother can still find joy through her child & his creativity. The next shot is in slow motion & it is a medium close-up of the mother kissing the child lovingly & smiling contentedly, as he is the best thing in her repetitive, boring life that is void of sensation & happiness, save for the joy brought by her son.
The next shot shows the dark, staring faces of the adults, which represents adults as being almost like robots; stationary & basically dead until they are needed, with little vitality. The slow pan over their relentlessly staring faces hammers this point home. This cuts to the mother working at her desk, surrounded by other people working, but she is working on schematics for the boat her son designed, showing how children can provide sparks of inspiration for the adults around them. Older people are stuck in their ways & sometimes struggle to break free of the societal constraints they have been conditioned into, so children can be a huge help for them, as their minds are free & untainted by internalised evil.
We then see the boy with two other children playing with an origami boat floating in a water basin. This boat is then taken & crushed in the hand of a faceless adult. The children were having fun & being creative, but the adults in a position of power stifle & crush this creativity, as they do not want individuals, but just more clones of themselves.
The next shot shows the mother being taken by two other adults into a small room. They shout at her & throw her boat schematics at her in a rage, presumably because any ideas about leaving the island are seen as treason. This representation of adults shows that they oppress not only children, but each other. The adults receiving the oppression just accept & internalise it, as they always have, whereas the children are able to rebel & escape this cycle of abuse.
The next shot is a close up of a shouting man, presumably barking orders that are televised throughout the complex on the island. Then we see two of the other adults sharing a kiss but being dragged away from each other, further reinforcing the representation in this video of adults oppressing each other. The woman then looks blankly into the distance, not into the camera.
Then we are shown an exterior of the complex, an ultra-modern sleek building but shot in very unsaturated colour so it looks dull. The windows seem to glow against the dullness, perhaps signifying that the people inside the building are not yet entirely void of light.
Then we pan into a washroom where various adults are composing themselves, but the mother of the boy is sitting on the floor looking forlorn & being comforted by another woman as a man hands her a bottle of pills. Then we cut to a sly-looking person looking into the camera, before returning to the mother, now dead after an overdose of pills. Her son crawls towards her. He is now all alone in the world, but he understands what his mother wanted of him.
