For obvious reasons, I couldn’t pass on this video…. The British all-female post-punk band Savages has released a new video for the song ‘Strife’ off their album ‘Silence Yourself’, and it is supposed to be directly inspired by Albert Camus’ ‘The Stranger’.
The short black and white movie, directed by Antoine Carlier and filmed on the beaches of Gironde in South-West France, could certainly turn Patrick Stickles green with envy, as it directly focuses on the famous murder scene in the ‘Stranger’. It is tough, aggressive and dark like Savages’ music, showing two men walking toward each other on a beach drenched by the sun, before engaging into a deadly fight. Jehnny Beth’s vocals are as sharp as usual and the discordant and noir guitars match every one of both men’s punches. This is what Jehnny Beth had to say about it on her Tumblr:
‘We wanted to make a video that focused on a timeless human physicality and physical expression, a search for understanding through the movement, action and reaction of two characters. We chose the classical landscape of the empty beach. A fight ensues between two men: one older, one younger; a tragic outcome, and death.’
‘The film is a play on human instincts and desire for survival, echoing the famous beach murder scene in the novel ‘The Stranger’ by Albert Camus’.
’Either a tale from the past or science-fiction, this is an endless story of human struggle. We see the fragmentation between two generations, a subject of predilection for Savages (ref: ‘I Am Here’ manifesto), where the “young, intelligent and radical people” live in servitude to established elders.’
Okay, it is a good thing they said it was a reference to Camus’ book, because it would have totally escaped me. I don’t really see the link with the song… The struggle of two generations? Wasn’t Meursault’s crime supposed to be a sort of metaphor for irrational things happening for no reason? The video is brutal and intense, but I wonder whether Savages want to be the intellectual-artsy band of the moment at any price …. But you could always listen to the Cure’s ‘Killing an Arab’ instead.