Filmmaker deconstructs HEILUNG's Anoana music video. Can't stop gushing!

hello everyone welcome to my channel my name is manand Reaper I'm a filmmaker with about 10 years of experience in Hollywood I'm currently working on my first feature film and while I'm working on that I thought I would actually take this time which is actually quite lonely if you didn't know if you know your only ons set so many days of the year um for the rest of it you're actually at home working so uh behind your computer pretty much alone with some Zoo meetings so I thought I would start th

e conversation with you talking about one of the things I love most which is metal music and specifically metal music videos now today we're actually not going to be looking at a metal video ironically so check on my channel to see some reactions to some other metal music videos but we're looking at something sort of metal adjacent I guess um I'm looking at Highland to today hilong is often considered a metal band for some reason I'm not entirely sure it's kind of like folk music but they play a

t a lot of metal festivals and kind of the fan base for Hong is a lot of metal metal heads um and I actually also really really like their music uh quite a bit especially for like meditation or yeah that kind of thing so I've I've over the years I've really come to enjoy their music a lot and this specific song came out a while ago Anana is uh its title and it's one of my favorites of theirs and so I wanted to take a look at the video today I I have seen it before um but it's definitely been a w

hile so taking my kind of analytical approach to it I thought I'd take a look so come join me and let's go so beautiful opening so we have the reveal of this little girl quite in immediately I don't know if it's implied that she is the singer because the singer also always wears these handlers uh or that she's like a separate character but just wanted to point out the incredible shallow depth of field here like so little is in Focus only the very tip of her sleeve here which is beautifully textu

red and then it immediately like it shifts to her eyes which is so stunning and everything else is just just kind of a Fain blur very beautiful to set the tone very kind of ethereal and soft stunning oh this is probably going to be another one of those ones where I'm going to be pausing it every other second because look at this shot wow so she's on a beach here but look at the reflection right beneath her that's just so gorgeous so she has the endlers and much like the girl she's like playing w

ith sticks or more endlers um so there's definitely a relation between the two I guess we'll figure out what it is and then the beautiful view here at the sea and everything's cloudy and kind of Misty and again so atmospheric and really adding to the vibe I love it again here look at the beautiful Reflections here you can't even see where land begins and where water starts right um what a an absolutely beautiful shot I don't know if this song is about Reflections or being reflective somehow but

if it's not it should be because the the imagery is definitely carrying that um beautiful beautiful landscape here and it makes sense for hilong as well since there's so much about the connection to Nature and you know human nature I also wanted to quickly point out here in this shot so every all colors are kind of subdued except the Browns and it makes for this beautiful well Reds really makes for a beautiful contrast so the the red of her hair here really really pops it's very beautiful and la

ter on probably we'll see how much that's going to pop also in contrast with the rest of nature w so this sequence here where she's singing I think they it's one of those things where they sing it faster and then slowed it down to make the Motions more like fluid and ethereal definitely has that Vibe very cool very well done I love the the contrast of these shots which are very there's barely any other color here except for the red of the fire or the orange what a great contrast to the paler whi

ter more green blue toned colors that we just saw very nice love the contrast of the cool and the warm ho ho oops what a shot to start to to pause on um just quickly wanted to go back to something I noticed that is that I've never noticed before but it's so beautiful look at this shot first of all the landscape's just stunning I love the hills here and how much depth we have um with this snowy hill in the in the background and then we have the trees a little bit more to the foreground then we ha

ve the beautiful rolling like Meadow with a Mist on it and then this little Shack I don't know how you describe it with a little smoke coming out of it but most notably that's a um solar eclipse happening right there I don't know it must have been that they did that in post but that's very cool and again it it really sets the tone and it gives us this almost like you know mystical kind of I don't know astrological vibe to it I suppose and then to for this story to continue into this birth which

is happening during Eclipse wow that must be one special person that's being born there H what a beautiful lighting during uh the birth scene very again very etheral and just really lovely I'm also really loving this shot I don't know why I'm finding it so kind of creepy and a little harrowing like something's going to come out of there to eat us or something I don't know but it's it's giving me some sort of creepy tunnel Vibe okay I love this where she's playing in the Glade that's beautiful al

so again kind of in slow kind of slowed down a bit um I don't know if any of you have ever read the comic book or the comic series Saga or saga the little girl reminds me of the little girl girl character on that quite a bit she was also special um if you've read the comic you know why but yeah love that probably not intentional I have no doubt that it's not um but really fun kind of uh connection there for oh this song is so beautiful just wanted to quickly look at uh did you see the moose that

was so cool let me very cool shot I love how she is clearly seen in the foreground the mousse is back there it's beautifully lit I love like this all the flowers and the grass hair what a beautiful shot like this whole forest and like this Glade looks so inviting and just again this is all beautifully shot very narrow very narrow depth of field and it just adds to this Vibe of her being so innocent playing in the woods and again very ethereal just uh beautiful beautiful and they kind of sometim

es insert these shots of the other singer like that sorry it's so quick but love that too too and Hong is kind of known for their really elaborate stage costumes and everything and obviously you see all of that here too and um yeah it's just stunning just so Artful I actually don't know if maybe that's the singer but probably not I don't think it is um but she now is grown up apparently but again look at this shot wow I wonder where they shot this because this is a beautiful part of the world cl

early and this Sunset is stunning assuming that they shot this there um without you know changing the sky here which I doubt that they did so they probably shot it and at Sunset it's just beautiful the the light is so soft it's so and the reason why I think that it was actually shot at this time is because the the way that the hills look is very much like it would look in reality when like the Hills are lit by the sun like this like you're kind of starting to lose color because when it the sky g

ets darker we start to see less color like the the color doesn't actually go our eyes just become less good at seeing it um but it's uh what a beautiful shot what a beautiful shot I'm just loving all of this and again everything is kind of shot in slow motion like the girl and then her sort of dancing there it's all slow motion oh that was a little inconsistency there so here all of a sudden the sun is a little higher so they shot this before the they shot the establishing shot which is her in f

ront of the Suns like on the Hills um and they shot this one a little bit earlier because this sun is higher still oh my so beautiful I think this song I don't know it just touches me a certain way um it's so beautiful when you see the little baby in the crib with all of the roots and the leaves and everything and then they have this part of the song That's So mellow and sweet and it really does sound like a lullabi and now we switch again to the grown-up girl and the music intensifies again stu

nning hey I'm loving this part where they're dancing around the fire again we saw the solar eclipse so it's obviously it's like a significant moment and um look costumes are great so hilong uses real skulls and all of their and and animal HIDs and everything in their art and the stage art but clearly also in the videos and it's just it all looks so textured and I don't know the also the the editing and the pacing of the editing with the slow motion it's just very slow and languid and kind of lik

e it's almost putting you to sleep but also still we're so incredibly absorbed by everything that's happening on screen it's What a Beautiful video so what's really fun there is that they imply that the little girl is hugging or snuggling with the Bison obviously they didn't have her hug or snuggle with the Bison because that would be dangerous so I don't know what they have maybe a really big dog or something that or or maybe even a hide that still had the Bison fur on it and had her sort of cu

ddle with that and it works really well because it does look like she's actually snuggling with the Bison it's a beautiful touch about you know humans and animals and coming together and that kind of thing but that's a kind of a film making trick that ending my goodness I remember seeing this for the first time and it really bro tears to my eyes it's um just a also the the shot of her and she has such unusual eyes as well it's like so pale and the way that they lit it and they shot it they reall

y pop and the landscape it's so wide and so full of opportunity and mystery and then her running to fight with this bison which he was seen before as a little girl just like not even a minute prior I think um hugging is stroking it it's uh quite something else I don't know there's a yeah this this song always really stirs me beautiful anyway I uh I hope you enjoyed that this little deconstruction of this video it definitely has been a while since I last saw it and I'm reminded of how much I love

this music and um these artists if there's anything that you know about this video like the mythology like I don't want to dive too deep into it like I would love for you to tell me a little bit more so we could talk about it I love talking with you and discussing and kind of talking about the mythology and the story that these artists come up with and um for us to kind of do construct and consume and just have fun with and understand a little bit better where they're coming from and especially

in relation to do music so share your thoughts in the comments please and if there's anything you thought that I pointed out that you'd never noticed before or that you enjoyed let me know too and um if there's any other songs you'd like me to react to and kind of analyze and deconstruct let me know and lastly I hope you'll join me for the next video peace