One of the Best Science-Fiction Films of the Last Five Years is Actually a Music Video

'oh baby' by LCD Soundsystem and Rian Johnson

This is an article I wasn’t quite expecting to write. It is one of those odd coincidences and confluences that sometimes presents itself and that you shouldn’t ignore. A few weeks ago I started listening to the band LCD Soundsystem. I had always heard good things about them, but after listening to a song or two I was never interested. This time for some reason I was. The song that got me hooked was ‘Dance Yrself Clean’ from their 2010 album This is Happening. The song is a slow burn. Almost nine minutes long, it begins with a drum beat and cowbell, with synths joining in soon after. Front-man James Murphy sings carefully and softly, the song is understated and shy. Until it isn’t. For three minutes you are waiting for something happen and it finally does, the tension breaking. Heavy synths come in sounding rubbery but bright, the drums become the louder and Murphy’s singing becomes more desperate. ‘You’re blowing Marxism to pieces / Their little arguments to pieces,’ he sings, commenting on how party culture dissolves ideology through its hedonism and consumerism. Now, satirical lyrics about leftism are enough to make me pay attention, but crucially the music has to be good as well and luckily LCD Soundsystem’s music is good.

So I quickly went down a LCD Soundsystem-shaped rabbit hole. Again, coincidentally at the time I was obsessively listening to the debut album by the Strokes, This Is It. I remember listening to the record once, being unimpressed and then confused as to why critics seemed to love it so much. But then, suddenly and all at once I got it, and the Strokes helped open up LCD Soundsystem for me. The two bands were part of the vague New York post-9/11 rock scene detailed in writer Lizzy Goodman’s book Meet Me in the Bathroom. Now I was clearly not a part of scene, but by browsing YouTube clips and reading interviews and such, it seems pretty much like a golden era, one that it is easy to become nostalgic for despite never having lived through it.

One of my favourite LCD Soundsystem moments is their final show in Madison Square Garden in New York in 2011. It turned out not to be their final show – the band got a bit ahead of themselves, announcing a grand retirement and then coming back with an album only four years later. But before they would un-retire, they had to retire first, and they did this with a string of shows in their hometown of New York and then a final epic four-hour concert. Two moments of the show stand out most. The band play ‘All My Friends’ a song that has a driving piano melody that repeats through the whole 8 minute song, reminiscent of Krautrock bands like Neu. Gradually the song ramps up as both Murphy and the piano get louder and louder and more instruments are added in. Murphy sings about growing older and nostalgically reminisces about how much fun he had during his youth. At the song’s climax Murphy asks repeatedly ‘Where are your friends tonight?’ and wishes he could reconnect with friends that he has lost. There’s a moment of ultimate catharsis when the crowd joins in on the last lines of the song and suddenly the song ends. The second moment is right at the end of the concert when the band play ‘New York, I Love You but You're Bringing Me Down’. A piano ballad, it’s different from most of their other music. Gentle and lilting the lyrics concern the both the wonder and terribleness of living in New York. It’s a fitting send off to the band. White balloons fall from the sky. A beautiful tribute to a particular time and place.

So why am I talking about all of this? Well, mostly because it is something I like and wanted to share. But also because of that coincidence that I mentioned. A chance discovery I made whilst searching for more music by the band was the video for their single ‘Oh Baby’. It turns out it is one of the best science-fiction movies of recent years – top five definitely – and it does all that just in five short minutes. ‘Oh Baby’ is one of those music videos that is more like a short film, and one that is mostly unrelated to the song. The song that accompanies the video is a ballad, full of bouncy synths and electronic bleeps with Murphy’s soulful, crooning voice on top of it all. In the video there no members of LCD Soundsystem show up, there is no lip-syncing or dancing. What we get instead is a bite-size science fiction story and one that is deeply emotional.

Academy Award-winning actress Sissy Spacek and Academy Award-nominated actor David Strathairn play a retired couple. They are scientists and are busy working on something big. Their dining-room table is scattered with physics books and crumbled up pieces of paper. They’ve also moved in a giant whiteboard to help but it simply isn’t working. Whatever they are trying to solve, they can’t, and they are getting frustrated. Until the husband suddenly gets it. He passes his wife a pad of paper with an equation written on it (playfully blurred out by the director). The couple hold hands and smile. The camera quickly cuts; they’ve moved out of their home and into a farmhouse. Their existence is frugal; their fridge contains only some apples and a bottle of champagne. The couple continue working and get some deliveries. We slowly see them building something in their garage until it is revealed. They’ve built a set of two doorways, one labelled ‘here’, the other labelled ‘there’.

The wife gently rolls a ball through one of the doors, and it rolls straight out of the other doorway. These scientists have invented teleportation. There’s a touching moment where they look into each other’s eyes fully cognisant of the monumental consequences of what they’ve done. They manage to make a chicken walk through the doorway and teleport in the other one. Afterwards they celebrate by drinking champagne from plastic cups and hugging each other tight in the sunset. We cut to the couple in bed. The husband is awoken and catches local criminals robbing the house. We see gunshots but it is unclear what they were aiming at. Then we cut again and see the wife, a big blood stain on her chest fallen to the floor. She’s dying, shot by the burglars. At this point the song is building to a climax. The husband carries his injured wife to the garage in the early morning light. Inside the garage the scientist ties a piece of string to his leg and ties the other end to a plug. As Murphy sings the last lyric about going ‘into the dark,’ we see the husband carry the wife through the teleportation doorway but as he walk through the string around his leg pulls out the plug. We don’t see the couple emerge from the other doorway. They’ve gone together into nothingness, into the dark.

I was blown away by the video. It’s such a succinct and effective piece of storytelling. And of course, I loved the fact that I had found a perfect science-fiction narrative in such an unexpected place. Further research revealed that the video’s director was one Rian Johnson. Johnson is an interesting case and he is clearly an enormously talented film maker behind blockbusters such as Looper, Star Wars: The Last Jedi, and Knives Out. I’ve liked some of his films, like his low-budget neo-noir Brick and hated others – The Last Jedi is not only a bad film but it somehow spawned an even worse sequel. What can be seen across all of his work is his undeniable talent and ambition, but also a penchant for being too clever by half and subverting audience expectations for the sake of it. The music video for ‘Oh Baby’ has all of Johnson’s best traits and none of his bad ones. It’s a showcase for two great actors and Johnson gives them ample room to breathe. They give subtle, touching performances. The video is also beautifully lit, something I noticed almost immediately and what gave the video a cinematic quality that is rare. Finally, the story is told with real care. Transmitting reasonably complex ideas sans dialogue is difficult but Johnson manages it, creating a moving sci-fi story in a totally unexpected venue.

So back to the beginning; sometimes coincidences are just too difficult to ignore. I was meant to stumble upon that video and this article was meant to be written. Now, I just hope that just like in the video some brilliant scientist couple discovers time travel so I can go back to that night in Madison Square Garden in 2011 and see the band live.

This article originally appeared in Interkom magazine.