Music Video Review: The Sick Leaves - All these foolish things (I've said)

This music video was taken from The Sick Leaves’ SAMA nominated debut album Tunnel Vision and was also recently added to rotation on MTV Europe. It is an animated music video which was produced and animated by Matthew MacFarlane and together with Sick Leaves frontman Eksteen Jacobsz conceptualised the surreal environment of the music video.

The opening lyric in the track ‘Slip into a never ending dream’ serves as the key to introducing and understanding the bearded man’s imminent journey in the fantasy world. For the first part of the journey the surroundings have been filtered of its colours and speaks to the viewer in various shades of grey, black and white. Peculiarity reaches new heights as a skeletal bird soon flies by and the man’s skeletal dog soon joins him on his journey.
The second part of the journey takes place when the man and his dog reaches a small boat and sets off into the undulating waters of the ocean. But soon the boat starts flying into the air and among the clouds the journey continues. Psychedelic colours spring forth from the clouds and colour wise the overall mood is lifted. The man’s journey concludes when he flies into the mouth of a large green monster and there he falls helplessly back to earth.

Eksteen Jacobsz says the man’s journey “is about finding companionship in the things we hold dear, but is not with us anymore i.e. the skeletal dog.” Broadly the video touches on themes of loss and the difficulty of moving on from that loss, to the consequences of not doing so in the end.

The video is full of delicious imagery and will provide new information upon each time of viewing. On the track Eksteen’s intense guitar work, but delicate tones become the perfect soundtrack for supporting the odd imagery on screen. All these foolish things (I’ve said) is delightfully strange and a buffet full of themes and meanings to find in the images.
7/8

NM - Andre Kluyts