Japanese Breakfast has shared a video for “Picture Window,” a release-day single from For Melancholy Brunettes (& Sad Women). Michelle Zauner self-directed the video, shooting a shadowy romantic short on the streets of Seoul with actors Kim Gyuri and Omega Sapien. Sapien’s “energy and charm were so readily apparent,” Zauner elaborates in a statement, and “Kim’s “feeling for melancholy and uncertainty turned out to be a wonderful counterpart.” Check out the video and statement below.
Ever since I was a young girl I’ve dealt with intrusive thoughts of loved ones dying horrible deaths. When someone is running late or they’ve neglected a text or even if they’re just looking over a balcony, my mind has a tendency to run to the worst case scenario, a reflex only exacerbated by my experience of many real deaths. It can be both a relief and a struggle to love someone who doesn’t share this same proclivity for anxiety. Picture Window explores that dynamic.
We shot the video while I was living in Seoul last year. My idea was to follow a couple, constantly tracking left to right, as one partner charges boldly forward and the other, progressively anxious, becomes increasingly reluctant to follow….
I wanted this video to feel like a short film, and watching it back, it’s bittersweet to look back on my year abroad—the wonderful people I met, the neighborhoods I loved and lived in. The constant tracking from left to right is a reminder of how time continues to pass no matter how forcefully you struggle to beat it back or rush to get ahead of it. I watch out the window as the scenery passes, visualizing all my unlived lives swishing past.
English (US) · 