Brooklyn electro-punk titans get the conspiratorial and paranormal treatment from writer/director David Ayer.
The video for LCD Soundsystem‘s “Pow Wow” features Anna Kendrick playing a being with psychokinetic powers, specifically telekinesis — the ability to move things at will. In this case, other human beings through time and space. Ayer himself, in an interview with MTV (which co-produced the video with Kashy Khaledi of MEAN magazine), said “In this world, Anna’s sort of this shape-shifter, I guess you could say.”
Ayer said the world is a “little esoteric,” witnessed as the frames unfurl with the Freemason, Egyptian Book of the Dead and other hermetic (alchemical) symbols nested and layered within the music video. Kendrick, in fact, seems to be Ayer’s analogue for the Egyptian goddess Isis, who was the patron of magic and nature, and the friend of thieves, murderers and the wealthy, as well as the being who resurrected Osiris.
It’s as if her Kendrick’s character is collecting L.A.’s sinners with her magic, escorted by a bevy of bodyguards with the focused look of special forces about them, and a man who appears to be a lawyer who explains to the sinners what is about to happen. Once the sinners are gathered by Kendrick’s teleportation powers, they all seemingly appear in an underworld, presented as a room eerily reminiscent of the Black Lodge seen in David Lynch‘s “Twin Peaks.” They are shepherded by a Freemason usher into a line-up that includes two top military brass and what might be either a businessmen or a politician.
The idea with the video was to make it more of a short film featuring the music of LCD Soundsystem — a re-definition of the music video, if you will. The proper title for the video, in fact, is “Anna Kendrick Featuring LCD Soundsystem’s ‘Pow Wow’ — Directed by David Ayer.” And to Ayer’s credit, it taps into the more mystical strains of the conspiratorial mindset and paranoia manifesting itself in American culture these days, especially in government.
Ayer noted that videos concept dealt with the idea that “No matter how big you are, how important you are in this temporal world of ours, there’s somebody more important… You have to answer for your sins, and that’s a little bit of what this video is about.”
Check out the video embed below and experience the esoteric underworld yourself and see if you can decode some of the symbolism.
[MTV]
November 16, 2010 at 1:25 pm, Phoenix’s Luarent “Branco” Brancowitz: Exclusive Interview | Death and Taxes said:
[...] boundaries to appeal to the masses. We’re a fickle lot though, those of us who champion LCD Soundsystem breaking big and then promptly turn up our noses when that bobblehead at the party puts on “Drunk [...]