Analysis of 'The Knife' music video

Analysis of ‘You Take My Breath Away’ by The Knife;



As you can see, the opening of the song uses ambi-editing with the flashing disco lights. The colours in the clip are blue and amber. The significance of the blue could be to indicate a trance like feel or techno atmosphere. Further, the amber lighting contrasting with the blue lighting keep the eyes of the audience switching constantly so that they can really feel the pace of the song.
Shortly after this, the audience are introduced to the band members who are wearing colourful puffer jackets; one red and one orange. The band members are swaying to the beat of the music and have been done up in strikingly heavy make-up. The significance of the amber and red could be to signify the danger that the characters may be harmful. In addition, the band member in the red coat has the collar turned up in the style of Dracula which emphasises this even further.
The Camera cuts to a man dancing in all black with a black and red strip across his face. This is relevant to my song choice of ‘Pearls Dream’ as there isn’t a story line as such and the directors have chosen to create mystery rather than narrative.
As the video has been made using a small budget because The Knife are not a highly popular band, the effects, costumes and lighting that has been used appears to be amateur. Particularly some of the effects- they have used the fade effect which can be seen at 0.12 seconds.
The editors have then chosen to use basic special effects of neon lights flashing on the screen. I think the editors chose to do this to keep the audience interested as there is not much happening within the sequence.
‘we're in the middle of something
we are here to stay
and we raise our heads for the colour red’
These lyrics are key to the music video as the characters are centre screen with red lights above them- a perfect summary of the nature of the song.
The editors go on to use more basic editing techniques and the costumes of the performers do not change for the duration of the video.
It could be argued that as The Knife are an alternative/indie/electro pop group, the ambiguous and indistinct cheaply made video reaches out to their fans. Fans of The Knife would be disappointed to see a glossy American style music video and would appreciate the simplistic nature combined with music lyrics which can be analysed and interpreted in numerous ways which this video comprises.