ALT J - HUNGER OF THE PINE
- Directed by NABIL -
Every film is a reflection of a fraction of life – it can be an emotion, a state of mind, a physical or mental struggle or simply the depiction of character. I like to believe that the videos that appeal to me open my eyes to new perspectives in life, while portraying something about me as a person.
Alt-J’s Hunger of the Pine music video by Nabil Elderkin is a clear example of how a simple concept can be emotionally striking and extremely effective. Illustrating the themes of persistence and callousness in moments of adversity, Nabil’s music video is a literal reflection of the hits and strikes we absorb in life.
Alt-J’s initial lyrics “sleeplessly embracing, butterflies and needles, encased in case I need it in my stomach, for my heart,” suggest the conscious absorption of the good and the bad experiences in life and their storage in the instinctual gut and emotional heart. I love how Nabil chooses to depict this using magical realism. The main character absorbs arrows in his flesh, yet stubbornly continues sprinting, disregarding the pain and the blood. Despite our hero’s seeming immunity to the hits in the midst of the battlefield, he does not exit the forest unscathed. The arrows sticking from his flesh do not kill him, yet they leave him struggling, seeking to reach liberation from his suffering. This concept brought up some interesting questions on life in my mind - is our purpose to absorb the hits and to keep going relentlessly, or to reach the ultimate goal? It appears in Nabil’s video that it could be either. On one hand, the seemingly immortal character persistently fights for life as he continues running from the flying arrows. Yet, ultimately he appears to be content in finding a rather brutal means by which to end his suffering.
The camera direction complements the dynamics of the music. With an opening birds-eye-view frame, I gained a sense of orientation and instinctually felt a fast-moving danger lurking in the air, while simultaneously understanding the character’s intention – to escape from the forest maze. With a change in speed between the character’s running in slow-motion and the birds-eye-view forest frames, Nabil emphasizes the character’s slow escape from the fast moving arrows, while adding more drama and motional impact for us. It is almost as if we are observing the character being slaughtered slowly, yet do not have the power to act upon it.
Furthermore, location impacts the stakes in the story. Whereas the character has chances of survival in the forest, where trees shield the arrows, he exits the maze of trees only to land in a field, where he is exposed, naked to the strikes hitting him relentlessly. Nabil thereby achieves tension, while creating an inescapable fate for the character, which we want him to avoid at all costs. Thus, when the character seeks certain death, mixed emotions arise within us while observing the man taking the last painful strike with relief. The last shot is concluded by Alt-J’s French lyric “a great hope has passed through the earth, a great hope has crossed my fear.” Thus, an optimistic ending is proposed to us, despite the brutal image we are witnessing and mourning over. Alt-J concludes that through the struggles in our lives, we overcome fear and adversity through the hope, which the innately resides within us.
