Toby Bryant
Full of cultural references, the ever-artistic Christine and the Queens today releases the music video for latest single ‘Comme Si’.
The opening track from 2018’s groundbreaking sophomore record, Chris, the music video for ‘Comme Si’ sees Christine and the Queens channelling Wiliam Shakespeare’s Ophelia.
Opening with her take of John Everett Millais’ infamous oeuvre ‘Ophelia’, Christine and the Queens spoke to Stereogum about their desire to redefine Ophelia’s tragic end in Shakespeare’s Hamlet, in which she drowns as a cause of her madness.
“For me, the whole idea of the video is to twist the terrible ending of Ophelia, as a myth, an idea. In Hamlet, Ophelia is, of course, the unlucky lover, the rejected one; but her madness and the suicide that ensues is also symptomatic of a whole era: the young girl, unwanted, unloved, simply cannot live. She’s doomed, she disappears, she melts with nature.”
Bringing the character back from the dead with their trademark choreography and quirky personality, Christine and the Queens revives her Krump-style dancing in the river. “There’s a pride in my singing, the thickness of a new skin, I am done with belonging”, they deliver in ‘Comme Si’. “What if Ophelia is oozing with a strange power, her own?”, they continued to Stereogum.
Playing Coachella this weekend, touring the United States after that and heading back to Europe for a string of festivals, it’s a busy summer ahead for Christine and the Queens.
Have you seen the ‘Comme Si’ music video yet? Let us know what you think @CelebMix on Twitter.
