Mademoiselle Juliette video

[lefty12357]

Originally Posted by CFHollister

Undoubtedly there may be more layers of meaning to the video, but let me point out what some of the more obviouse aspects are.

The reason why Romeo hardly figured into the video is because Romeo hardly figures into the song. The song is about the relationship between Juliette, Shakespeare, and the unresponsive world that Shakespeare creates for Juliette to play out her tragedy. Juliette (as played by Alizée) acts as a young, wide-eyed girl eager to enjoy the petits plaisirs in life (being distracted by the plate of candies, also a nice alusion to Gourmandises). However the other members of the courtly families are stagnant and unresponsive to both each other and their surroundings, but also in particular to Juliette (notice how Juliette pokes and prods them to no effect). The video, mostly depicts the party scene of Romeo and Juliette, which ultimately sets off a chain of events that leads to open violence between the fueding Capulets (I think represented by pink) and Montegues (black, but I might have that backwards). We are left with a West Side Story-esque (which was based on Romeo and Juliette) dance/fight scene between the two houses.

So, those are the major elements that jump out at me on the first viewing.

I think you're on the right track, CFH. I need to watch the video a few more times, but generally speaking, I like it. I get the feeling the concept and the shooting for this video was done rather quickly. I think they could have done much more with the story, but maybe they didn't have the time.

Alizée just looks fantastic in it. I just love watching her move !

[Zack -Alizee Lover-]

I love the video.

[DirtyACE]

CFHollister, that's an excellent interpretation and very helpful, thanks. I'm inclined to agree with you. Don't know how I didn't see that myself.

[Le Parrain]

WOW shes hottttt. she better hit big in europe.

[Chommpers]

I was kind of baffled too about the meaning of the video at the end even though I have read the play, but after reading CFH post that seems like a pretty good interpritation. I can see thats what they were getting at. Anyway it was a really neat video and Lili looks great so good things all around.

[ALS]

I watched the video a few times and something started looking very familiar. I noticed that in the dance sequence Alizée slipped in a few hand dancing moves from Madonna's Vogue music video. Although not exact but darn close to mimic her moves.

The best part of this video is it is a completely new and fresh direction for music video story telling. If this ever got played on American MTV it would baffle a lot of people. Probably after they got over the shock and the endless WTF is this, I'd bet there would be a instant improvement in the quality of other musicians music videos.

[Deepwaters]

I'll agree with CF Hollister's interpretation, but will add a couple of things.

There's the world inside the mansion and the world outside it; outside is the real world, or the world where the heart can live honestly. This is represented by Romeo and the smile she gives him from the balcony. Inside is a world of pretense, power games, and shackling of the feelings, which Juliette can never quite fit into.

About the bathtub scenes, I'm not convinced that's Alizée in the tub, in fact from the expression on the face (or rather lack of expression) I would tend to say not. The impression is of staleness even in pleasure. Everyone wears masks, or is otherwise unresponsive. There is no true feeling, no honest self-expression inside the mansion. And Romeo never quite manages to get inside. He doesn't fit into that world either (and his family is just as guilty).

The removal of the mask from the woman in black only as she's leaving -- that conveys a subtle impression of death to me.

And finally, I think Alizée dances better than ever. Obviously she hasn't fallen out of practice. Just the opposite!

Edit: A few more thoughts. Alizée appears in two roles in this video, which I will call Juliette and Alizée. Juliette is the one in the corset, Alizée is the one in the white dress. Juliette never smiles, except in the beginning when she is seeing Romeo. All through the rest of the video, she looks either confused or stony-faced, even when dancing. The masked woman in black led her into the mansion, and she was never happy again.

Juliette is the only person in the mansion who is wearing both pink and black, mostly pink but with black trim. Everyone else is in either pink or black. (Except Alizée, of course, and she isn't really part of the scene. Well, and the naked women in the bath.)

The bath scene is NOT like Libertine IMO. Mylène in that scene conveyed hedonism, luxuriance, sensuality. The woman in the tub in this video looked either dead or terrified.

After watching a second time, I'm convinced that the masked woman in black is Death. She watches everyone fall down dead, seems satisfied with the outcome, removes the mask (but we still can't see her face), and leaves.

[CFHollister]

Originally Posted by Deepwaters

I'll agree with Cooney's interpretation, but will add a couple of things.

Do you mean my interpretation? Being a theatre major, I'm sure Cooney's would be more insightful, but I don't think I've seen it yet.

[fsquared]

Yeah, others were talking about how they were likely to start voguing; it was almost inevitable given the costumes.

I found the slow part, well, really quite slow. I haven't seen Eyes Wide Shut except in excerpts, but it does certainly remind me of that. I suppose that was OK, though a bit dissonant with the uptempo beat. The aspect that I found rather incongruous in this part was that when she was singing, with like the Youpidou-esque shoulder bobs, and etc., it just seemed a little too...."perky".

Somehow I found the part where they break into dance a bit...how to say it...awkward. Sutured in and a bit sterile (the part where she "leads the troupe", especially; it just sort of seemed like it was something happening in a dance studio). Maybe I'm overloaded with MTV-type ADD-esque camera cuts and the picture wasn't moving that much or something.

Then the other stuff with the battle dancing, I dunno, just seemed kind of forced. I guess an allusion to R+J/West Side Story? Someone was talking about krumping; I have no experience with that, but maybe it's a trend to throw in a recent dance style (e.g., Lorie hopping on the "tecktonik" bandwagon in Je Vais Vite).

Maybe it will grow on me. But then, I wasn't a fan of all the old music videos either (I didn't like JEAM, L'Alize, or JPVA all that much).

I guess I'm not really commenting on the story much; I suppose the story has some interesting layers to pull out; I'm mainly commenting on the "feel" and the watchability.

[Deepwaters]

Originally Posted by CFHollister

Do you mean my interpretation?

DOH! Yeah.

Sorry, editing to fix.