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| Click the image to play the video. Again. |
Months later, I still find myself infatuated with Kizu's music video for "Kizuato", the title track of their third single. With it, they demonstrate their concept of illustrating real human pain on every level. Vocalist LiME, guitarist reiki, bassist Yue, and drummer Kyounosuke show us what it means to be deeply mentally scarred as they descend into a repetitive, unending madness caused by obsessing over an unknown being.
Within the first 30 seconds, we are introduced to Kizu’s dark world and the science of it all. Immediately, we see glitchy footage. As if something wasn’t being processed properly in this video’s loading or render, there are frequent, fast-paced jump cuts foreshadowing the story. We see an innocent girl that is struggling to accept the reality of her sanity – her innocence deteriorating as surely as her once-beautiful bouquet of lilies is falling apart. She is eternally struggling to render what is going on, just like how we are wondering what is happening to our computers. Both of us completely in denial that there might be a bigger problem.
The enticing colors and the fast-paced movements titillate my eyes. The camera jumps from one beautiful shade of crimson to an emerald green, and then to a lovely indigo in every shot. Flashes of a mouth filled with blooming and nyctinastic flowers indicate the beginning and end of a hallucination before, finally, we are confronted with the dreadful virus poisoning the mind of our narrator and the girl we had only seen minimally until now. An unhealthy obsession with someone unknown is vocalized, but the narrative passes by too quickly. Before I know it, the video is over, and I’m left obsessing over it as much as our narrator obsessed over their unrequited love.
I play the video again.
The music is crisp and clear; heavy metalcore breakdowns and drums invoke rebellious impulses. I’m able to comprehend the music and the narrator’s thoughts, but the video is still too fast. LiME reveals his agonizing, passionate vibrato, expressing the girl’s true inner turmoil with a ballad-like melody. The lament and longing in the whining and cracking of his voice is emphasized by the silence that undercuts it. At the same time, the girl attempts to regather the remains of her bouquet, the remains of her sanity, on her hands and knees after horrifically realizing that she’s destroyed them. How pitiful. Although these heavy and light elements are opposite on paper, their union here creates a unique and complicated audial experience that’s as confusing as the music video it’s paired with.
But it’s an all-consuming experience that’s so beautifully executed that I don’t want to look away. I don’t want to stop listening.
I play the video again.
Despite the fast-tempo scene changes, there are moments that make sense. Moments like when LiME’s rough vocals reflect the girl’s frustration while being held captive by disembodied hands. Moments where I see reiki hopping around in his cage, treating his time captivated as if he were on stage. Moments where we see Yue’s face reflecting the sadness in the lyrics as he plucks the strings of his bass. Moments when we see Kyounosuke aggressively beating at his drums, letting it all out to the very end as his bunny ears flop about. He could be overdoing it, but in the context of this piece, it’s only a more accurate depiction of the turmoil we’re feeling inside.
Moments where I feel like I'm falling apart as I see the flowers wither and die.
And all of these moments are repeated about 50 times in under 4 minutes. And because every shot is recorded at a different angle, I never grow tired of it. Taken in the same setting. Of the same people. With the same Rubix cube. The same flower.
Just different lighting. Different positioning.
I play the video again.
I found it impossible to enjoy the music video to its full capacity when trying to focus my eye on each individual scene. It was better to watch it with a sense of detachment. The harsh jump cuts make it impossible to focus my eyes on any one moment in the footage. I only confused myself further, getting lost while trying to keep track. Looking at my screen as a whole, I began to comprehend the whole story.
And such analysis could say a lot about the underlying message of the video, which was likely unintentional. You have to take a step away from your problems, no matter how painful, so that you can see the bigger picture. If you look too closely at the small details, you’ll get lost in the moment and end up in an infinite loop that only leads to your mental demise. It will be just as infinite as the repeating scenes in the video, which you are bound to continue to replay over and over again because you can’t get enough.
Because you’re frustrated about being unable to fathom what’s happening. Saddened by the agony expressed in the vocals and excited by the fast tempo of the drum, you hit replay continuously.
And you float in limbo between adrenaline and dread, eternally entranced.
You play the video again.
Related Links:
Kizu's OHP
Kizu's Twitter
LiME's Twitter
reiki's Twitter
Yue's Twitter
Kyounosuke's Twitter
Kizu's YouTube Channel
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