Bastille - Of The Night

The official music video for ‘Of the night’ – Bastille, shows a very dark narrative which tackles a taboo subject of people giving up and committing suicide and just other deaths, which the detective shown has to witness and see. The video starts with a long tracking shot through a tunnel in a road which leads the viewers into the journey of the detective of what he is about to see, as after the title shown ‘Bastille of the night’ it then shows a mid-shot of the detective in his car driving to the scene, which is where we see we are on a journey with this person, because as soon as the car turns in and you see the flashing beacons and crime scene tape I noticed straight away this would be a dark music video with quite a strong narrative about death. I feel the meaning of this video is about giving up on life, as a lot of the dead bodies shown are linked to suicide, however a lot are murder but the majority seemed to be suicide, such as the ones with the pills next to the bed, the one with the knife in the hand and also the detective at the end. The main idea of why people do commit suicide is because they have given up on life and they can’t deal with the pain anymore, which links to the lyrics in the song ‘I can ease you of your pain’ – is this suggesting that death can ease the pain of people suffering from depression. At the end of the music video it shows the detective has a knife in his hand and has killed himself, is this again easing his pain of all of the horrific crime scenes he has had to witness in his life and he cant deal with it anymore, the beginning leads us in to his journey of what he has to see and then the end of the music video shows the end of his life, which is really dark. ‘There’ll be nothing left for me to yearn’ which is a sign of the main person the detective slowly going in to depression saying there’s nothing left for him to do as there have been so many deaths he has witnessed.  This music video is similar to other Bastille videos as they usually have a strong narrative which is linked to death, such as Pompeii which is about a historic event which took the lives of many people. 

‘Of the night’ shows the supernatural, as it shows the dead bodies miming to the music when they are dead, which is very surreal and gives quite a depressing feel to the music video. Usually in Bastilles music videos Dan the main singer is the main person through out it, but in this he is shown briefly for 2 seconds. This is because the band are possibly trying to achieve a more cinematic feel to the video. The editing in this video is really fast paced, it gets quicker towards the end which matches the story and how the Detective is ready to go. This fast paced editing matches the rhythm of the music.