New video: Christine and The Queens – Girlfriend
With the original concept developped by Christine herself, director Jordan Bahat describes how she came to him with “Charles Ebbets’ photos from the 1930’s of builders relaxing on girders 60 stories up in the air and said, ‘these are the sorts of scenes I want to create for this video’. Along with those pictures, there were colour references from Tarsem and choreography references from West Side Story and Michael Jackson’s Bad.”
“The message is both simple and radical,” says Christine and the Queens. “Simple because the video relies on energy and an effective use of choreography: more physical, sensual and assertive. Radical in terms of its aesthetics: here, the gang concept blurs the lines between ballerina and thug, as was often the case in American musicals such as West Side Story.”
The video also delivers us a more detailed unveiling of the Chris character; bigger, prouder, funnier, and damned horny whilst also illustrating the narrative of the original song beautifully. This song is like a story you tell to your friends. Chris is the gang leader, the kind of person you look for and listen to. He does what he wants, perched up high somewhere, dangling above the emptiness.
