Can’t Cook (Who Cares?)
The video for this song by the band The Car Is on Fire premiered in 2006. If you watch this clip, you might ask the following question: what does that guy look like? In the video in question the face of the main character, who is a young man walking through a city, is never shown. There’s always some kind of obstacle obscuring the view of his countenance: a radio, a pipe, a map etc. This lighthearted video clip was directed by Grzegorz Nowiński.
Unisex Blues
Ever wondered what a walk around town might look from the perspective of a fish? You can find out by watching the 2008 music video for Kasia Nosowska’s song Unisex Blues. In this clip directed by Przemysław Bulsiewicz, a man gets a fish at a pet shop and transports the animal in a jar to an apartment on foot. During the walk the man holds the jar with one hand by the top so that the fish can have a clear view of things. The camerawork here gives a sense of the fish’s point of view.
Propaganda
The 2010 video clip for this energetic song by the band Łąki Łan was directed by Julia Bui-Ngoc. Julia herself appears in this music video as the main character. In this clip, which may bring to mind Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, the heroin gets transported from a corridor in a block of flats to a dreamlike realm, where she, amongst others, sees miniature versions of the musicians from the band and rides a bike underwater.
Próba Live @ Duży Pokój
This music video from 2011 shows the band Sistars playing two songs, A.E.I.O.U. and Listen to Your Heart, at a rehearsal at the home of one of the band’s lead singers, Paulina Przybysz. Próba Live @ Duży Pokój, which was directed by Florian Malak, superbly captures the energy that appeared at this successful musical rehearsal and constitutes an interesting look at the behind-the-scenes of a popular band’s life.
Krzyżówka dnia
Krzysztof Skonieczny directed the 2011 music video for this song by Monika Brodka, which was made using the stop motion technique. In this clip Monika’s face is often surrounded by a white background, on which drawings, cut-outs, and other elements appear. Some of these images were proposed by various artists including Bartek “Arobal” Kociemba and Karolina Sulich. In 2012 this clip won a Fryderyk, which is the Polish equivalent of a Grammy, for best music video of the year.
Hardkor i Disko
In the 2012 music video for this song by the band Sofa a model town experiences the apocalypse. At first the settlement gets invaded by spray-painting robots. Later a stone winged lion comes to life on a mountain that looms above the city and chaos breaks out in the streets. In the end bombs fall on the unlucky town, causing the land on which the city stands to crack open. This tongue-in-cheek video clip was directed by Maciej Szupica.
Holidays in Rome
The 2013 clip for this number by Tomek Makowiecki is a great example of the simple truth that a good music video doesn’t have to correspond to the lyrics of the song (no worries, the song’s in English, so you can see for yourself). Tomek is nowhere near Rome in this music video directed by Łukasz Garlicki, yet the clip’s images harmonize with the song’s words and melody very nicely.
Pył
The clip that illustrates this composition by Fisz Emade Tworzywo, a band founded by the brothers Piotr and Bartosz Waglewski, gives a sense of what the Polish countryside looks like and features some interesting dancing. Marek Skrzecz directed this greatly-filmed music video from 2014. It won the Grand Prix at that year’s Yach Film Festival, which is a prestigious Polish festival for music videos.
Written by Marek Kępa, ed. ASJ.