Rhye / Open [Bondax rmx]
Kaleidoscope slplit-screen music videos are basically a [...]
Entice us to ‘Paradise’ with Michelle Williams
by: Kate Mottola
Wild Nothing delivered another indie success with their latest album Nocture (August 2012). Now we implore you to keep your eyes peeled and ears open for their new, melancholic-yet-ever-hopeful music video to the single, “Paradise.” The video offers perfectly timed screen changes following the beat of the song and – to make it even more appealing – features Hollywood pop princess, Michelle Williams. Shot in L.A., New York, St. Maarten, and Niagara Falls, the video immediately captures its audience with alluring intro music and shots of blue skies intermixed with Williams’ cute pixie cut, her face hidden behind black sunglasses.
Pulling us in to its lonely, cyanopsia-lensed world of empty airport terminals and long days of traveling, Williams emerges as the perpetual wanderer. We connect with her; we’ve all felt this way at one time or another – longingly staring out of the window seat at the endless clouds and sky. Enter pink retro Walkman and hypnotizing voice of Jack Tatum, Wild Nothing front man, and we’re hooked. With lyrics like, “You crush me with the lies/And tell me once or twice/That love is paradise…,” it’s almost too much to take when blended with Williams’ embodied sense of yearning and achingly forlorn gazes.
Almost midway through the video we hear her voice reciting lines from Iris Murdoch’s, A Word Child:
Everything was love.
Everything will be love.
Everything has been love.
Everything would be love.
And everything would have been love…
Before you become too downtrodden Wild Nothing, and director of “Paradise” music video Matthew Amato, carefully shift momentum toward more optimistic horizons. Michelle Williams even smiles – which makes us smile (she’s so cute!) – and we feel a hopefulness of satisfaction, of future days spent not staring out windows but rooted in more directional movement. Given glimpses of happier times, ‘Paradise’ still leaves its audience questioning, is paradise still (and always) just a bit out of reach?
