This music video does follow a narrative which is realist as it shows scenes from the story of the couple’s life.
All shots in this video do not show continuity they go from one scene to another completely randomly which makes it hard to find a narrative; much like any film that shows formalism.
Surrealist art cinema tends to subject itself to visions of sexual desire, violence and bizarre humour. Rihanna’s music video shows a lot of sexual desire between the couple featured throughout the video and also a lot of violence between them as demonstrated in these stills:
These two shots are similar to match on action as they are not moving but the scene around them is, which is a feature often used in surrealist films such as the match on action shots used when falling in Un Chien Andalou. The room seems to be spinning which gives a dizzy feel and also a kind of dream state as if they are dizzy in their minds as they are kissing and real life does not go that quickly.
These two shots link with each other as they are shown one after the other and both Rihanna and the guy are positioned in the same place of the shot but in a different place. This gives a feel of displacement commonly shown in surrealist films too.
These two shots show a projected image on top of Rihanna which can relate to a dream reality as this does not happen in everyday life, the clouds also connotes dreaming.
There are many random shots throughout this music video; much like in the film Decasia. Having random found footage like these do not follow a narrative which is much like features of surrealist films.
a narrative which is much like features of surrealist films.
In this shot there is an extreme close up of the end of a cigarette and editing has been used to make the burning ash flash multicoloured this is much like the formalist film Decasia where pictures and images have been highly edited to give an uneasy feel and also shows