Antonioni, Sam Cooke, Miley Cyrus, and You

This video should be an anti-drug PSA but that would be a waste because it’s so much more.
It’s L’Avventura for those whose attention spans have been fried by too much coke and TV.
I don’t think I have ever seen a more harrowing depiction of emptiness. I can almost feel the cold heat of the morning after sun on the outskirts of these frames.
This is Antonioni with a shot of meth. Miley Cyrus is Monica Vitti with gold teeth and a cocaine tongue.
And like Antonioni‘s work this video depicts the existential dread and boredom of the over-privileged. Here just pantomiming “fun” with empty mimicry of African-American cool. Its bleak and cold and ultimately a denial of life more harrowing than a Kurt Cobain wail at the end of Smells Like Teen Spirit.

And all sound tracked to what can only be the “Having a Party” for new millennials.

Like the Sam Cooke classic this tune’s music belies the sadness and angst of another empty night of throwing down. With almost the same weariness of Sam Cooke in that song the singer is almost exhausted at the prospect of another all-nighter of “molly” and meth.
I have never heard a more depressingly ambiguous song about partying since the Cooke classic where the lyrics claim one thing with the music and delivery contradicting it at every phrase.
This is the abyss and it’s starting back at you with a mocking tongue through gold plated teeth.