Simon Penochet chooses a Scissor Sisters video by CANADA

Simon Penochet is responsible for making one of the sexiest adverts for a chocolate factory ever! In fact, we featured his career-making short back in June this year. We wanted to know more about the director, and what better way to get a good idea of his influence than by asking him to pick his favourite music video? Well, there probably are better ways to be honest, but this will do for now. Also anyone who picks a film made by CANADA must be on to a winner. Take it away Simon!

Simon Penochet – The Scissor Sisters: Invisible Light directed by CANADA

I could quite easily speak about a “classic” like the videos of Michel Gondry or Spike Jonze but I’d rather not be too nostalgic! Instead I have chosen Invisible Light directed by Nicolas Mendez from the directors’ collective CANADA.

As far as I’m concerned, this collective from Barcelona succeed time and again to renew the medium of music videos when it has sometimes begun to become boring. Invisible Light is a wonderful “treasure hunt" in tribute to the films of Clouzot, Pasolini, Bunuel, Jodorowski and Schlondorff, by its nearly identical reproduction of some of their most provocative film scenes.
 
Skilfully combining directed dream sequences with reality, this music video transports us into the fantasies, hopes and fears of a young, bourgeois girl who struggles to live in an oppressive social environment. The film is seamlessly executed, highly visual, gets straight to the point, and is played out without embellishment: a “haute couture” construction.

The unsettling characters who revolve around this girl in her infernal spiral – a husband and a hypnotist – are the reflection of each of her existential questions and symbolise her own taboos. Morals cannot exist in this world. When I watch this video I am overcome with the want to follow this woman into her world and continue to watch her desires play out in front of me. I am also left with an ambivalent feeling which both destabilises and seduces me.

My favourite scene is also the climax of the piece: a visual firework which incorporates graphic art, shifting light and acid colour tones which I believe perfectly depict the subconscious of this girl. More than a visual masterpiece, this music video has a complex story which masters the genre.