Playful camera techniques and wanton imagery overlay a solemn lament in Screaming Females’ new video for “Hopeless,” off of the recently-released Rose Mountain. The video, directed by acclaimed filmmaker/documentarian Lance Bangs, opens with old-time piano arpeggios that seem unsure of themselves gliding lackadaisically over spotlight camera shots of sadly vintage looking carnival-type animal figurines. The guitar starts and the camera immediately cuts to Marisa Paternoster’s face, sad and almost whited out by oversaturated lighting, singing the opening lines, “Don’t count on me again…”
The entirety of the video is overlayed in animation with crayon-etched lines and colorful blots coating the dimly-lit room in which the full band is playing. The insertion of childlike scribbles over the dark setting and sincerity of the song creates a rather curious duality in Paternoster’s mind: clinging to a certain innocence of the past in the midst of an inescapable and tragic present, as her quivering, yet fortified voice belts out, “I’m not hopeless, or helpless or begging you to stay. It’s just turning out that way.”
Rose Mountain is out now on Don Giovanni.
