At the risk of doing his earnest artistry a disservice: Hooray! Button-Eyed Bandage Boy Bowie is back! In his new video for Lazarus – a track which shares its name with his recent off-Broadway musical – the musician’s disconcerting new guise returns, his eyes blinded by bandages and buttons.
Unlike Blackstar – a sprawling 10-minute mini-epic which presented the musician in full, surreal, dream logic stride – this new video has a relatively more simplistic storyline, with Bowie trapped amid a fraught, feverish nightmare. Shrouded in darkness, his frail figure steps out of a closet and is faced with cold hospital-like confines. Imagine Narnia via Nosferatu and the Exorcist, a video made even more cinematically claustrophobic by the frame’s tight, concentrated dimension.
Johan Renck, who directed both videos, had the following to say about their collaboration:
One could only dream about collaborating with a mind like that; let alone twice. Intuitive, playful, mysterious and profound ... I have no desire to do any more videos knowing the process never ever gets as formidable and fulfilling as this was. I’ve basically touched the sun.
Take a look at the video and let us know what you think of it.
