Lana Del Rey‘s entire oeuvre begs to serve as the soundtrack to epic cinema. (She’s done her fair share of that already: “Young & Beautiful,” anyone?)
Accordingly, the clip for “White Mustang,” the shortest cut from this summer’s fantastic Lust For Life, looks like a montage from an epic love story set in the future.
Directed by Rich Lee, who also helmed the videos for “Love” and “Lust For Life (feat. The Weeknd),” and co-starring Eðvarð Egilsson as the Queen of Coney Island’s hunk du jour, the video continues the trend of the space-age-meets-retro juxtaposition that’s dominated this era: it’s in the quick glances of the architecture on that strange city skyline, and that music technology Lana’s man is using. (Logic looks wild in the future.)
The most intriguing part of the visual comes once the song revs out and a horn outro comes blaring in to provide the soundtrack to a romantic dance between Lana and her bad baby on the street — until a rocket (or a missile?) shoots up overhead, and the tiniest snippet of “Get Free” plays in the background. (“Who never got to fly at night / ‘Cause they were caught up in the dance…“) A “Get Free” video coming next? Hopefully — it’s the best.
As some have already pointed out in the YouTube comments, the “White Mustang” clip would have worked equally well, or better, with the criminally unreleased “Best American Record,” given the vague narrative of a musician too focused on his music to give Lana all his lovin’.
I mean, is this “my baby used to dance underneath my architecture” or what? (Also, that zoom-in at the beginning was a pure “High By The Beach” throwback – will she ever get free from the paparazzi?)
More importantly, this video is only further proof that we need Lana, The Actress to make her official debut in a full-length feature already. Tropico and “Ride” were great places to begin, but we need Bond Girl Lana, or Tarantino Lana, or something — stat.
