Music Video Review: The Postal Service - The District Sleeps Tonight

by phil on Saturday Feb 21, 2004 2:11 PM

Peter and I discuss the music video by The Postal Service The District Sleeps Tonight.

PhilDhingr: I felt the video depressing, because the guy appeared as a shadowy magic projection next to this girl. She was sleeping like a baby in one sense--quiet and peaceful; he was too sleeping
PhilDhingr: like a baby, but in the other sense, kicking and screaming every 2 hours.
PhilDhingr: what do you think?
kerstalis: like staying up all night while your corporate girlfriend sleeps and dreams and you go crazy during the night and you just sorta like goof off all night while she has to work the next morning. so his and her vivid realities intersect with a conscious neotenous man and unconscious sleeping beauty, giving way to the unobstructed fantasies but a hole of hopeless he feels.
PhilDhingr: I didn't notice that at first, but you're right. They're not on the same page.
kerstalis: I like the idea of visiting insanity through hyperactive sleep deprivation rather than just being insane overall like a lot of music videos projects
PhilDhingr: What also bit me in the video was seeing the stranger guy kissing the girl on the cheek. Ouch. I've been there before, seeing the object of my desire cavorting with others. And it sucks.
kerstalis: like I don't even think he sees what she's dreaming, its just they layer them together so you can see the chaos in the invisible planes like radiohead's go to sleep video
kerstalis: yeah its a shard
kerstalis: thrown in there for reality
kerstalis: or unreality
PhilDhingr: reminds me of the bjork video for hyper-ballad
PhilDhingr: that technique of using a projector on top of reality has a great effect, and is filled with metaphor.
kerstalis: yeah because its like visualizing the conscious plane's
PhilDhingr: The White Stripes did a video like that, "Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground" where they project the party of the days before onto the walls of his ruined house.
kerstalis: interesting
PhilDhingr: okay, I'm going to cry now.