Somebody That I Used To Know
Gotye (feat. Kimbra)
Gotye is an Australian artist who has been active since 2001 when he released his debut album, Boardface. Since then he has released two other albums: Like Drawing Blood (2006) and Making Mirrors (2011). The video I'm analysing is from his latest album, and is often seen as his most popular song as it hit #1 in the charts in the UK, US and Australia, as well as many other countries. The video was very well recieved as well, garnering over 800,000,000 views, and over 3,000,000 likes on YouTube, and both the video and the song fit in with the indie pop genre.
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First of all, the song is concurrent with the genre as it sounds generally lighthearted and melodic, and the theme of the song is more to do with feeling than the angrier alternative of indie rock, as the song focuses on a relationship between two people that has now ended, the void it has left behind, and how it is difficult for the lead singer (Gotye), to let go, which is shown mainly in the chorus where he expresses anger that she "cut him out" and "stooped so low," mainly putting the blame on the other person in the relationship. After the first chorus, the other singer (Kimbra), presents her side, blaming him for being controlling and manipulative, making her believe that when something bad happened, it was her fault ("But had me believing it was always something that I'd done"), however the second chorus shows that he is still dead set on his view of the situation, and still unable to just let it go.
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The music video reflects this, as it is a conceptual. The video is also bright and colourful, which is quite common for the lighter themes of indie pop. As for the themes it presents, the shots of the video rarely differ, as most of the time it's a close up of Gotye's face. The other main shots are the two shots of Gotye and Kimbra, and the shots of the drawings filling in both the background and Gotye's body. The drawing represents him getting pulled into the relationship, literally being drawn into it, and it's significant that it matches up with the background because he is locked into the relationship. Throughout the entirety of the song, he stares straight at the camera and rarely looks anywhere else, which shows he is dead-set on things staying the way they are.
Close up of Gotye in the process of being painted, staring straight into the camera
Gotye fully painted, matched with the painting on the background
When Kimbra is introduced in the song, so too is she in the video, and similarly to Gotye, she is painted in colours matching the background (a lot of it is different shades of green, which in this case may connote jealousy as Gotye fears he might lose her), however she starts off facing him, and there is a clear distance between the two, while he still stares directly at the camera, which shows that she starts to question the relationship, and is now focusing on him and his flaws. This is shown even further when she breaks out of position to a point where she doesn't fit in to the background.
Two shot of Gotye and Kimbra. He's still looking at the camera while she looks at him, and there is a lot of space between them
Kimbra now asynochrous to the background
The end of the video shows Kimbra walking away from Gotye and getting unpainted, thus fully disconnecting herself from the relationship. This is also the point that Gotye starts to look directly away from the camera, as there are small cuts of him looking to the side, culminating at the very end where they're both looking at each other, but she's already out of the relationship.
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This abstract and subtle method of storytelling is conventional to the indie pop genre as it differs itself from other genres and how they present narrative videos. The fact that it's a performance is also done to show the skills of the vocalists in the song, and actors aren't used unlike other musicians with bigger budgets. The video avoids using Mulvey's male gaze theory, as the camera doesn't focus on the only female of the peice alone, and when it does, it usually focuses on the shoulders and head, and not any areas that would otherwise be focused on. As for Dyer's star theory, the setting of a relationship between the two is done to make them more relatable and accessible to the audience, which also provides the personal identity gratification to the audience.