Of Monsters And Men - Crystals : Analysis, break down, and Hope?

I need to talk about this music video.

If you have not already watched this, I would HIGHLY recommend you doing so as to understand what I will be talking about in the rest of this blog.

So please, watch the video and if you are able to ignore the lyrics, watch the man's facial expression the whole time and note what feelings stir as you watch.

....

Assuming that you've now watched the video if you haven't before, did you feel like this afterwards:

And did you want to do this for the man in the video:

(hugs)

If you did... are you curious as to WHY?

Well, as I watched the man lip-sync to a song that a girl was singing, I couldn't help but notice that with the lack of colour and heightened emphasis on the man's face, his crease between the eyebrows had mine feeling the tension the whole time.

When it comes to people's facial expressions, I tend to mimic them, and as I do it draws out the emotions that I am/ they are possibly feeling. So, the whole time, this man's eyebrows are doing the "creased" expression:

When people do this it often means they are focused/angry, worried/afraid, sad/in agony.

I found that during/after this music video watching this man bob and weave to the music as he lip-sank to it, his expression made me feel sad.

Also, at the very end of the music video, he gives this final expression:

His lips are pressed tight together. Lips being pressed tight together can express determination and concentration.

In the video he does this with an eye crease, which I believe made it a "grin-and-bear-it" expression of sadness and/or agony.

I have seen one of my professors do this in college, often when we were talking about the implications of sin and suffering.
That expression, especially from that individual, has never really left me.

So, why is this music video so powerful?

Well, I think seeing this older man lip-syncing and bobbing to a song, sung by a women with fantastic word imagery and sound quality, with the grey-scale filter as his expression remains pained throughout the whole video, is something that most music videos today are not often showing.

Our society relishes in feel good pop, vibrant coloured, and sexualized media entertainment, that when something like this comes along in the main stream, one cannot help but feel moved and awestruck.

Pain, sadness, agony, is not something our current society wants to acknowledge nor accept... yet here is this music video showing a man who is expressing sadness the whole time... and it's okay?

This is something that Christianity is familiar with.

Wait, what?

No, really, I mean it. Agony, sadness, and pain is something that Christianity is all to familiar with. History shows Christians martyred, persecuted, killed, and tortured all for the sake of the Gospel which is the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Even  Jesus himself had to go through and agonizing death of crucifixion for the sake of God's love for Humanity. So, Christians know pain, we know life is hard, a struggle, and agonizing in many different ways. HOWEVER, we have hope that even when we suffer, have pain, and agonize in this life (sometimes more than others, and even some Christians are more pained than others), our hope is in Christ who suffered for us. We also have joy (not just the 'sunshine and roses,' happy go luckiness - although that can happen too), a joy that is rooted in the Gospel, and expressed because of the Holy Spirit who helps, guides, and encourages us in this life to go through the pain, sadness, and agony, even when it seems darkest.  That's not to say the pain will go away, or the sadness will end, or the agony will dissipate... but the hope is that it will one day -  whether it will be in this life time, or when we die and we see our Saviour face to face. This is not an empty hope, and it is the one thing that can grow in the dark. 


~To God be the Glory