A Soul-Touching Music Video
A form refers to the visible shape of an object. In art, a form indicates not the format of painting, video, and sound but the visualization of message or image that the work of art intends to deliver. Sometimes, visualized images convey many things beyond beauty. For example, Michelangelo made a sculpture to reveal and liberate the form hidden in a stone. Disclosed forms became art. To the artist, creating a form by releasing a material or substance was related to the salvation of soul, rather than making an artwork.
This music video, “Music n Movie,” doesn’t try to cause any instant response by delivering the lyrics through explicit images. The director offers his interpretation of the song’s entire mood. One of the messages is this. “Even if we go through the same thing, everyone has slightly different opinions.” He successfully pulls out the message in the video. It shows how creative representation takes place when a work of art (music) influences on another work (music video).
The director made a smart choice to set the tone and manner through the basic setting. The background is a beach at sunset. A beach brings about images such as freedom, endless stretch, unpredictable change, and challenge. In the environment, viewers naturally take in characters such as a dancer, tourists, and a lovely couple. The mysterious moment of blue and yellow glow is when one world is replaced by another. Its lingering, melancholy mood represents unstable but beautiful moments of youth. The director did a superb job of capturing all kinds of movement in people’s minds at sunset.
This music video offers the joy of watching the harmony of music and image. As soon as the band’s sound starts, the calm sea is swept away by a huge wave. Regarding the rhythm of editing, when the instrument sounds weaken, images get slower; the angle of view gets wider to accentuate the vocal and the lyrics in an extreme long shot. The video’s main character walks into the sea and starts dancing with smile on her face. She dances alone in the roaring waves and slowly-fading light. She, who becomes a stone, falls into the water and is polished. She refuses to remain in her world and keeps on dancing. Embracing all the wind and waves of life alone must be as painful as one’s body is torn apart. Still, she is willing to embrace her fate as the sun sets and the wind blows. Her brave smile conveys what the director wants to say.
The director used the dance movement and the watercolor tone to convey the mood. The passion of young years is illustrated in a warm, not-too-daring way. These delicate efforts contributed to raising the quality of the video. Maybe, the director was intended to make a music video for his favorite song and further support people who want to give a bold challenge to a free world. He might have thought that a single music or music video could caress a soul and give courage. After all, that is what art is for.
Sung MOON (Programmer, Jeonju International Film Festival)
[Information]
- Title: Music n Movie
- Director: YOO Duek-bum
- Song: Park Soeun
- Synopsis:
Various people gathered on the beach. A woman goes into the water and starts dancing. A man is holding onto his smartphone and unable to let go. A couple comes to the beach for travel but looks at their phones at a café. A girl can’t play the guitar and is staring the sea blankly. Pebbles bump into each other and polished in the waves. In her rough times, the dancer realizes that she can look at the sky and start over just like jumping into the water. Each character musters up their courage to take action and reaches happiness in their own terms.
- Director’s Statement:
The music video is about action. There are three groups of people. Stones and a woman dancing in the water represent the actions and attitudes they need to take. Those who can’t act include the one who can’t stop, the one who can’t start, and the one who can’t maintain. They just need to take a light heart and move on to the next step. The dancing woman may look crazy but has a strong will to take action. The water isn’t deep, but only those who enter can realize it. People get easily discouraged by hardships, but stones become smaller, rounded, and freer when they are cut and refined. I believe that humans can be freer by taking challenges as stones do. Even though the weather is still dark and cloudy, happiness will come when we make a move. Remember. Stones on the beach keep going into the sea. I hope every person who doesn’t take action, including myself, will look at the sky and jump into the water like the woman and stones in the video.
