Dusk music video review

★★

Directed by: Rakesh Jaitly

Film Review by: Julian Gaskell

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This is a pleasant enough instrumental chill out trip pop track and a pleasant enough video of a young girl’s day out on a train with her camera to take pictures of a suburban oasis during lockdown, but that's about it.

The YouTube video is called Dusk and the track is listed as hZA – Pebbles. If hZA is the artist then the track must be Pebbles but the video is called Dusk. So if this was a music video collaboration I’m wondering how much collaboration there was between the musician and the videographer as there is way more dusk than pebbles in it.

The music track itself is a 2 minutes 44 seconds sample of the same loop, over and over again with little to no variation. It is a trance like beat that is relaxing enough and ideal for a 3 hour meditation in a floatation tank but has very little range or variety to keep you interested.

The video is very sweet in its own ordinary way. A girl takes the train from London to find a suburban oasis during lockdown as presumed by her mask and being the only one on the train. We see lots of train shots to begin with, the view from the train window, the view inside the train, the close ups of the girl on the train. Then similarly we see her walking when she gets off the train, we see her walking along the residential streets and we see her walking along residential alleyways. She eventually gets her camera out to take a picture of some leaves and she is now by a stream, then a park and then she walks into a field that appears out of nowhere like a giant suburban oasis.

It’s a very ordinary chillout track and a very ordinary day out home video, escaping the built up neighbourhoods to find some nature. The shots are of simple urban scenes and simple open spaces which are all a bit too ordinary for a music video. The video and song are both easy viewing, calming and relaxing, but before the 3 minutes are up it's all over and you are left wondering where the rest of the video has gone.

The video ends on its first really creative shot in the last frame, begging the question why wasn't more done in this experimental way and not just in the visuals but the music too. The final frame stands out as one of the sole creative shots more in keeping with the music style, leaving you thinking it should have been all shot like this to make this ordinary day trip, an extraordinary lockdown trip.

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