kanye west

The ‘All of the Lights’ Video Is Enter the Void–Like

Kanye West dropped the Hype Williams–directed video for “All of the Lights” today: Like the song, it’s epic. It’s emotional, with little girls walking in the snow in black and white while sad violins play. But it’s also flashy, with Tokyo-inspired neon lights straight out of 2 Fast 2 Furious all over the place. (Cop lights! Strobe lights!) The text looks a lot like the Tarantino-approved opening credits to Gaspar Noé’s psychological thriller Enter the Void, to the point where West’s credits are either a deliberate homage to the recent film, or just very much inspired by the same ideas and hypermodern aesthetic. (Not to crow — or, fine, to crow a little — but Noe inspiring Kanye is a development we predicted way back in September.) Some stuff is slightly less creative: West holds his head when he sings “I hold my head,” and the thin plot of the video basically follows the thin plot of the song. But the real winner in this video isn’t West or Rihanna, it’s that little girl who kills it in her few minutes of screen time.

The ‘All of the Lights’ Video Is Enter the Void–Like