Hit and Sunk
Bright lights. A lush but desolate urban landscape. Rain splattered puddles splashing upon a lone woman trying to tail a taxi. All this is complemented by the somber yet electric sounds of Siamese Katz’s jazz fusion track, “touché coulé.” This music video highlights the beauties of abstract storytelling and the mesmerizing hypnosis of urban landscapes.
The cinematography here is truly gorgeous - the contrast of dark night with the colorful blurs of city light make for a visual feast. The idea here is that the urban landscape, while beautiful, has a tendency to entrance us and keep us trapped in a repetitive loop. The streams of headlights down the highway are fascinating and entrancing, but they are also confusing and can make us feel lost or overwhelmed. The lilting saxophone and sober piano playing over these scenes suggest a feeling of loss or emptiness. The overlays of a mysterious woman and the rain splattered lens emphasize these feelings even further.
Then, there is a change in tone - both in the visuals and in the music. The song speeds up and begins to get more eclectic; more free. The screen shifts from the oppressive dark winding city highway to crashing waves. The camera lingers on the ocean before subtly shifting into various different colors. Again, the music video uses color to achieve a visual metaphor, but this time it is more hopeful and colorful against the crescendoing track.
As the song shifts into a brighter but more chaotic melody, the ocean distorts into different shapes - parallelograms of color appear in the corners and converge into one another in a kaleidoscopic display. It feels far less crowded than the urban landscape. The waves are captivating as they crash over one another, crashing like the cymbals in the song. As the song reaches its climax, bright lights appear once again on the screen, this time overlaid over the vast ocean instead of the claustrophobic city.
The contrast of cityscape versus nature makes a powerful visual metaphor. It seems that the 'Hit and Sunk' is trying to warn the viewers of the cloying and occasionally perplexing drone of the city - while it is beautiful, one can’t forget to enjoy the greater nature and experience the freedom of the waves crashing around you.