Apart from the Arcade Fire's’ inspirations and interpretations about the song, -including Kierkegaard’s essay or criticization of modern ages or technology, I will talk about what I admire about this music clip.
Reflektor tells of an abstract of a continuous, somehow never-ending search, a journey. It is about impossibility of transmitting the meaning, fully to the receiver. If they achieve it, they will be completed. But, due to living in a reflective age, this will never happen. But, in my point of view, all the ages are reflective.
The clip starts with black, fade in, as it emerges from nothingness, as well as irregular notes be heard, then the drums and the band take to the stage. Big bang of the clip occurred.
The journey starts from a garage, as we all know, so many young bands formed there. With the band, practicing and continuously playing on the road, to give the audience what they’ve felt or discovered.
Their first try go for nothing as they discovered a Micheal Jackson look-alike with glass surface. So, they start again with a glass-surface coffin. Which shows us they gained some experience through the road, started again with experience. This time Win has a Bowie-like make up and they have a disco-ball in front. They’ve built themselves up, in a better way.
As the band progresses, they build themselves up with new outfits, assets etc. Although the lyrics stay the same, music evolves till the end. Telling us although they are saying the same things, with every try, they grow and change. But in the end, attempts are futile, they always meet a reflektor.
By some point, right after meeting with themselves on the surface of the lake, they hold the mirrors and becomes reflektors. I think their discovery is that an artist’s success is not coming from his or her inside only. An artist mostly reflects the things happening in their environment.
By that point, we understand that fully reflective MJ guy, is the threshold that they want to achieve. It is like an ideal that they can never reach, only exists in ideas world.
In this mindset, every time when you hit a reflektor, you feel unfulfilled. And in the clip, you deal with open ends, non-lineer editing and questionable details which gives you the same unfulfilling feeling.
Every Time you feel that you made it, you start once again and again, start a new journey until you see that logo. It is surrounded and complete. Reflektor not only gives you the feeling of incompleteness, it also says, only thing about everything is absolute halfness.
They leave Win and Regine in the garage. May be the only beings that completed, other members left out to continue their search.
I think Win and Regine, discovered something very special in their beautiful relationship. And all of their inspiration comes from that point. However, this is so unique personal they can’t fully transmit their feelings to others. That must be beautiful but tiring in a way.
