The music video for M83's "Midnight City" follows a group of children with psychic abilities who escape from captors experimenting on them. It references the film "Akira" by using similar shots and focusing on the children's glowing eyes when using their powers. The video shows the children working together to blow open a door with their mind and flee across a factory, playing as normal kids despite their situation. The final scene depicts the children standing together on a roof at dusk, their glowing eyes the only visible parts of their darkened figures and leaving an unsettling impression of their potential danger.

1. Music Video Analysis – M83 ‘Midnight City’
The music video for M83’s song ‘Midnight City’ follows a group of mysterious kids with
prominent ESP powers, such as telekinesis. Unlike Fineshrine, the video does not follow the
lyrics of the song and instead follows its own narrative, and is the first in a trilogy of story-based
music videos. As soon as the video begins there is an evident intertextual reference to
the animated movie ‘Akira’ that links into Andrew Goodwin’s theory, which also features
psychic children, using the same camera shots (such as tracking shots, extreme close ups
and cross cuts) and using the same experimental methods on the children. Something that is
also featured from the beginning is the videos focus on eyes, using many extreme close ups
on the children’s faces to showcase their eyes which light up when they are using their
powers. The young boy is shown to be a beacon hope to the other children, as is shown in
the next scene where they all wake him up at night and use his powers to blow the door to
their room off it’s hinges, allowing them to escape.
As with Fineshrine, the video is also predominantly shown in slow motion, which adds to the
surrealistic theme. There is also a prominent feature of light versus darkness shown through
the dark night and the children’s glowing eyes, as well as the children hiding in the darkness
from their captor’s flashlights. Many medium shots are used during their escape in order to
portray their emotions, mainly fear, as they are pursued. The video makes use of long shots
that feature all the children together as a group, showing how, despite their short time
together, they have already come together as friends and will protect each other. Many
tracking shots are used during the factory scene to show all the children chasing each other
and playing together, demonstrating that they are in fact just kids and shouldn’t be s tored
away and experimented on.
The final scene is used to solidify the unity between the children, standing atop a roof,
giving an establishing shot to a vast city. The theme of light versus dark is further
represented here, showing the sun setting on the city and darkness enveloping the children,
leaving only their glowing eyes as a group. This give’s the final shot a eerie, unsettling and
almost ‘Invasion of the Body Snatchers’ feeling to it as it zooms out on the scenario, showing
that despite the fact that they are all children, they are also extremely dangerous.