Human Sadness Movie Analysis

1266 Words3 Pages

Ben Fairbanks
Mondy
English 102
19 February 2017
Human Sadness Julian Casablancas’ “Human Sadness” is a beautiful and haunting take on the inner workings of several deeply conflicted human beings. Within thirteen minutes, dozens of scene changes occur and the storytelling cycles between five characters: a night driver, a store clerk, an adrenaline addict, a soldier, and an alcoholic man at a bar. The five characters are played by the band members of The Voidz and Casablancas himself. While cycling through the different individual stories, the scene frequently returns to a shot of The Voidz and Casablancas performing in a white room where they perform passionately. For brief moments throughout the video, footage of the Vietnam war, nuclear …show more content…

Three minutes and fifteen seconds into the video, after racing through the streets with the night driver, the adrenaline junkie meets with two women, likely prostitutes, in a motel room and takes prescription pills to get high. His hedonistic lifestyle is likely very relatable for many people who take drugs to repress their emotional sorrows. Even while being caressed by the two women, the adrenaline junkie seems conflicted and stares off into the distance. With dollar bills scattered over the bed and the women dancing inches in front of him, the adrenaline junkie still struggles to repress his torment as he lays on his back, stares at the ceiling and attempts to …show more content…

In an interview with Vice, co-director Warren Fu stated that Julian Casablancas was “a little cryptic and hard to understand” because his vision for the music video was so abstract. However, the characters’ powerful performances in the video truly help to tell the story in a way that would be otherwise hard to convey effectively. Fu noted that Alex Carapetis, the band member who plays the man at the bar, was “definitely channeling some inner demons” while shooting the emotional drunken scene. This was clear upon watching the video – the performance was passionate and seemed too real to come from a person with no background in acting – and thus made Carapetis’ struggles resonate with the viewer. We never learn of the specific struggles any of these characters endure, which, according to Fu, was intentional. Fu stated that, “Julian just preferred to leave them vague and for them to be…feelings,” in reference to Casablancas’ desire to evoke a personal reaction with the abstract and distant storytelling in the video. The scenes of chaos spread intermittently throughout can likely be attributed to, as Fu notes, Casablancas desire to convey “a general end of the world” and to “keep it vague and not be one particular thing, just that everything is going to shit.” As one would expect, Fu eventually stated in his interview that the “Human Sadness” music video was the most challenging

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