Background to the Video

‘From Paris to Berlin’ is generally considered

Infernal’s signature song. It is a pop song that

was released in 2005 on their album ‘From Paris

to Berlin’. The song was written by Alan Powers,

Raw Lagerman and Lina Rafn and received a

platinum certificate in Denmark. It reached num-

ber 2 in the UK singles charts. Sing Chew from

Singapore did a cover of the song in 2006 as her de-

but single but changed the title ‘From Taipei to Bei-

jing’ but the content was very much the same.

Type of Music Video

The music video is a mixture of narrative and perfor-

mance. The narrative is of the woman singer of In-

fernal (Law Rafn) looking for the male member

(Raw Lagerman) in a digital world and trying to

catch him because the character she portrays loves

him and feels ditched. This digital chase happens in

discos all over the planet in the digital world mean-

while the disco scenes contain the dancing conven-

tions and all through the video she is singing the lyr-

ics of the song as the performance. In the end she

catches him and they drive off happy.

Genre Specific Conventions

The main location is conforming to the stereotypical

music video of a pop genre– a disco– as this pro-

vides the flashing lights and dance moves most dis-

cos have. The main colour is green and blue, which

are both vibrant and bright colours again conforming

to the genre. The fact the narrative is a quest for love

also conforms to the genre. Most pop music videos

also contain performance elements and there is a lot

of voyeurism in the video which is again conforming

to the genre. The lighting is also very bright and eve-

rything is clear and easy to see. Also her costume is

a tight bright pink swimsuit conforming to colours

and a pop video stereotypical costume. There is also

a tight leather costume which conforms.

July 2012 4th Analysis

Infernal- ‘From Paris to Berlin’ Music video Analysis

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=b0EBqZFhfOY

Bright blue and pink colours, showing conformity

CD Cover

Relationship between the Visuals and the Lyrics

Most of the visuals conform to what the lyric is

saying. The lyrics tell the story of a woman search-

ing the world for her ex in disco’s and clubs, and

the visuals show a woman chasing whom is pre-

sumably her ex in disco’s across the planet. A line

in the song is ‘Every Disco I get in’ and they are in

a disco so there is further conformity there. ‘You

Left me Longing for You’ suggests she is desper-

ately trying to find him and the visuals show her

desperately chasing him.

Relationship between the Visuals and music

The music gradually increases in pace, and the vid-

eo is cut to show this increase in pace but at the end

the visuals slow, even though the music is still fast

paced, but this is to show her emotion and surprise

at finding love and to strengthen those emotions.

Also there are jumps whenever the beat changes.

An example of this is at 02:56 where the video goes

up a beat, louder and more violent and the visuals

jump cut to the disco location from the digital road

location.

The digital disco

The chase is on….

Shot Types

Almost every single shot is a close up, this can be a

close up of her performance, a close up of the danc-

ing, a close up of the chase or a close up on objects

or places in the digital realm. However, there are

some shots that aren’t close-ups. A particular ex-

ample of this is of the man and the digital bartend-

ed which is a two shot. The reason for this is to

show the contrast between real and digital.

Voyeurism

There is a lot of voyeurism in the music video,

most of this in the disco scene. There are men

wearing nothing but there underwear and women

wearing clothes that are tight, reveal a lot of leg

and tummy skin and to also help show off their

cleavage and make it look grander than what they

are. This is being done to sell the song because

there a lot of close up shots of the voyeuristic ele-

ments to try and attract a sex appeal. This is heavily

reminiscent of Mulvey’s male gaze.

The two shot showing contrast.

Voyeurism

Intertextuality

The music video looks a lot like the 1980’s film

‘Tron’. The motorbike-style vehicles look the

same, the fact it is set in a digital world and the

gridlines on the ground are all elements that have

been inspired by ‘Tron’ but the narrative has noth-

ing to do with ‘Tron’. It’s just the setting and the

vehicles having the ‘Tron’ elements.

There is another intertextual reference that isn’t so

obvious. The digital bar tender has the same anima-

tion style as Nintendo 64 characters such as Don-

key Kond and Super Mario, they don’t look the

same but they look animated in a similar way to the

Nintendo 64 style.

ABOVE: ‘Tron’ bike

BELOW: Music video bike.

ABOVE: Nintendo 64 Donkey Kond

BELOW: Bartender from video