Violence, FPV, Parkour, And A Transporter Combine For Greatest Music Video Ever
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There’s a good chance you thought you’d seen the coolest music video ever made. And no one is going to make fun of you for it, as we can all agree that Lionel Richie’s “Dancing on the Ceiling” was a success on many levels. But this video game-inspired clip is a fever pitch of “How in the hell did they do that?” giddiness that is in no way safe for the cubicle experience.
Ilya Naishuller is the 29-year-old lead singer for the Russian punk outfit Biting Elbows, and he also happens to be a visionary director with a knack for offing suited agents in hyper-violent manners, as evidenced by this video for Biting Elbows’ single, “Bad Motherfucker (Insane Office Escape 2).” It’s a punk song that thankfully bears little resemblance to whatever passes for punk in mainstream American music, but the tune takes a distant second place to the unrelenting onscreen mania fluidly blasting viewers everywhere from the titular escaped office to riding in cars with a dead man to fighting on top of a jet. Because there is some kind of a strange transporter-type device that zaps the characters from one location to the next. Which makes it science fiction, which makes it suitable for this website. Just in case you wondered. Witness the brutal genius below and pray your job never gets outsourced to the company this guy works for.
Using a GoPro 2 digital camera glued to a modified helmet, Naishuller and director of photography Sergey Valyaev’s project was without a sponsor once their vision came to light, so they just found the proper crew and shot it themselves, gaining both temporary notoriety — the video was taken down from YouTube when it was thought a real German shepherd was thrown through the window — and justifiable props from Hollywood and beyond. This interview with Naishuller goes deeper into the video’s production and his work as an artist in general.
And because one good turn (of an enemy’s neck) deserves another, here is “Stampede (Insane Office Escape),” for which “Bad Mothefucker” is sequel of sorts. A bloodier sequel.
