2. Opening Scenes (1)
The music video begins with extreme long shots of multiple landscapes, including a
jeep driving through the plains, and a group of young people skimming stones and
fishing. The non-diegetic music of the choir mixed with the diegetic sound of the
water flowing and birds chirping give the audience peaceful connotations, then
cuts to another extreme long shot of the river, giving off more connotations of
peacefulness.
3. Opening Scenes (2)
The following scene then completely contrasts with the previous scene, which cuts to 2
young boys fighting each other by the river. The non-diegetic music is still played
throughout this scene to show contrast (Levi-Strauss’ Binary Opposites). The director
also uses handheld shots to show the chaos and hastiness of the scene, then cuts to an
extreme long shot of the boy floating in the water, presumably showing the audience
that he has been knocked out. The video then cuts to an extreme long shot of a dam in
the river (referential code), foreshadowing where the boy is eventually going to end up.
We then get a long shot of the boy struggling to escape from the dam.
4. Dam Scene
The song is now in the chorus stage, where the young boy is presumably falling
through the dam where the audience believes that he is going to die. However, this
is not the case as the boy ends up in a ‘room’ inside of the dam, however I believe
that it is more of a referential/cultural code for entering the afterlife, or just a
abstract scene used by the director. The boy then climbs into a bed, and goes to
sleep, surrounding him are many different antiques suggesting that he is in some
sort of abandoned house.
5. Boat Scene
The boy wakes up to be in the middle of the lake on a small wooden boat, further
suggesting that the boy has died and is progressing to the afterlife. The first shot
begins zoomed in on the boys head, however zooms out to show the vastness of
the lake that he is currently sailing in. The boy sets up the sail for the boat and thus
leads to a tranquil part of the video, where he is calmly sailing through the lake.
However, we slowly learn that the boy is approaching danger through the
emotions that he makes, which we learn to find out is a waterfall.
6. Flying Scene/Final Scene
When the chorus hits, the director gives the audience the impression that the boy
is going to fall down the waterfall, however in a twist, the boat begins to fly in the
sky, further suggesting the heavenly connotations. The boy continues to fly in the
sky for a further 10 seconds in the music video until the boat tips over and the boy
begins to fall from the sky. The video then cuts to a crowd of people in which the
boy lands in and is carried around for a while. However, the video then suddenly
cuts to a shot of the boy being pulled out of the water by his ‘enemy’, suggesting
that the boy was entering the afterlife until he was pulled out by somebody.
