Wednesday 7 January 2015

"Sia - Elastic Heart" Video Review

I just finished watching Sia's new music video for her song Elastic Heart, which featured dancer Maddie Ziegler from the show Dance Moms and Sia's last music video Chandelier, and... Shia LaBeouf.

(No one saw that one coming)

In Elastic Heart Ziegler is smeared with dirt, wears the same leotard she wore in the Chandelier video with it just more tattered and dirty, the signature blonde wig inspired by Sia's hairdo, and LaBeouf wears only a tattered pair of beige shorts to match the leotard - his shorts and himself also smeared with dirt. Both are trapped under a life-size bird cage, and interact in a interpretive dance number that you think is going to be a dance off at first, but turns out to be a beautiful dance between the two of them with the mood switching from anger to playfulness faster than a PMS-ing teenage girl.

A lot of people are going to look at this video and automatically think of how weird it is and be reminded of LaBeoufs' dramatic last few years and assume he's still gone off the rail... When they really should be appreciating the beauty and raw emotion of this video, not to mention the phenomenal dancing executed by the both of them. They should also be appreciating the sight of his hot bod. Just sayin'.

If you think about it though, it is kind of ironic how Sia is known for dancing with her back facing the audience when she performs because she doesn't want to be famous, and how she wrote an article for Billboard calling it "My Anti-Fame Manifesto", and at the beginning of the article has a photo of her with a paper bag over her head. 



And of course everyone has heard of the time when LaBeouf headed onto the red carpet at the Nymphomanic Berlin premiere, sporting a paper bag over his head with "I Am Not Famous Anymore" written on it in black sharpie. This event occurred 4 months after Sia's paper bag photo. BUT, before the movie premiere Shia had tweeted those same words off of the paper bag on his twitter after he had written about retiring from show business and being in the public eye. So him going to the movie premiere, provoked him to do the paper bag stunt saying... he wasn't famous anymore because he had 'retired'.

 

With these nice little similarities of personal feelings toward the public eye and being famous, I can see why Sia chose Shia to be the male subject in her music video, because they can relate to one another. 

The song is supposedly about her relationship with her father growing up. Her father had multiple personalities, one being a great dad, and the other made her scared of him. The emotion shown through the interpretive dance is captivating to watch, having the mood between LaBeouf and Ziegler go from playful and loving one second, to anger and hatefulness the next. At the end of the day, everyone just needs to appreciate Maddie Ziegler and Shia LaBeouf's beautifully done interpretive dance that compliments Sia's songwriting talents and her voice, wrapping it all up in a little bow and delivering it to the world. 


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