“I feel alone when you get too close to me.”
The above statement is double-wrapped in meaning. On the one hand, and from the mouths of its producers, AWAY and Midoca, this song is a sweeping death knell that takes place in a dark and a lonely space where a great love once existed. Sonically, that space is manifested with precision, and vocalist Dark Waves brings that manifestation to the track’s fully-formed, aural perfection.
However, there is something deeper hidden within this ode to a death of intimacy; something that came forth once the producers met with their visual conductor, VIIISION of [aera], with whom AWAY has collaborated in the past (see: Sleepwalker). Attentive viewers will notice subtleties like the track itself being rescored for that filmic feel, but by far the most impressive addition is the rich symbolism that was thrown into the mix.
From the start, “Too Close” demands that the audience look at our world with an alternative and uncommon perspective: up-turned, and through the eyes of a criminal desperately clutching at one last brief moment of freedom. Where VIIISION’s work is concerned, we can absolutely read into things. The upside-down opening shot is not a move to be overlooked, nor is the emotive choreography that takes its inspiration from capoeira, the Afro-Brazilian “dance-fighting” martial art.
Within moments, the metaphor behind the images is made crystal clear.
Two inmates chained together, one black and one white (another non-accident), fighting the law and each other for a chance at freedom. Obviously, they are in this fight together, and equally obviously, working together would probably save their lives. But they do not see themselves as a unit—as two humans who hold the life of the other in their hands. The see themselves as separate, despite their connection. They see themselves as alone, even though they are together. Sound familiar?
This video took a beautiful ballad about relationships, and expertly expanded that idea to apply to the most fundamental of all relationships—humanity’s relationship with itself.
We are all undeniably alone together.
We are all fighting for freedom.
How we choose to act based on that reality is completely up to us.
I leave you—just as the video does—with this quote:
“The fundamental sense of freedom is the freedom from chains, from imprisonment, from enslavement by others. The rest is extension of this sense, or else metaphor.”
- Isaiah Berlin