GENER8ION - Love & Tears featuring Yannis Phillipakis and starring Charlize Theron (Review)

As his follow-up to his collaboration with Yung Lean on Storm, French musician and producer Benoit Heitz (as GENER8ION)  brings us something completely different.  Love & Tears, the title track from GENER8ION’s new album  features Yannis Phillipakis (Greek-born English singer, songwriter and guitarist and lead singer of the band Foals). It stars very famous movie actor Charlize Theron in her first music video since “Crossfire” by Brandon Flowers back in 2010 when she played a dramatic action-role character who rescues him in a stylised, film-like sequence).  That’s certainly not what she’s doing here…

I was lucky enough to be free to watch the premiere on YouTube (a great animated countdown!) where the song and video garnered a multitude of instant reactions.  One commenter said: “a song with Foals legend Yannis – I couldn’t be happier”, while another simply stated “love” in praise of the video.  Another early reviewer said: "One of the most captivating videos. We have the Artist's face as our canvas and the emotions and expressions changing while the music flows. An incredible performance and marriage of sound, light and edit. Unique video".  indeed.

Personally, I felt… knocked out. It's intriguing, mysterious, complex - and Theron is wonderful to watch.

We’re enigmatically told it’s Mumbai 2034 (the same year as Yung Lean’s school graduation in Storm, so something of a dual narrative emerging?) and then given a shot of some kind of contraption - a kinetic mechanical sculpture or a robotics test rig.  The rest of the video is entirely and simply Theron’s head and shoulders as she reacts to something off screen which we cannot see.  It’s disturbing watching her go through the gamut of emotions – especially because at one moment she is full of joy but then gradually – like a dawning realisation of something terrible, her face changes to one of increasing horror and bewilderment. It’s quite the performance given that all we see is her head and shoulders – what is happening is (currently) at least left to our imagination.  The lyrics explore themes of longing and emotional intensity, with recurring motifs of "looking down from the wall" and "heat".

My own take is that she is perhaps a robot realising the nature of her being... yeah, maybe not.

With a beautifully languid beat and lyrics superbly delivered by Phillipakis, this haunting video is not just a great follow up to Storm but, I hope the continuation of some kind of emerging story.  Will this thread continue? I do hope so!  Watch Love & Tears below: