As all bands tend to do once they get big enough and have established the longevity that proves they deserve a bigger budget for their videos, “If You Really Love Nothing,” the single from Interpol’s latest, Marauder, offers us La Dolce Vita hollowness vibes as served up by Kristen Stewart and the man walking around with birthday candle pizza at Formosa Cafe, one of those distinctively “see and be seen” places in Los Angeles.
A man smoking his cigarette with a unique sense of old Hollywood glamour awaits in the red-lit backdrop of a dark night outside of the restaurant–and so the noirish nihilism, thus, already takes immediate effect, further compounded by the smoke spelling out “If You Really Love Nothing” as we segue inside to see the band against yet another red backdrop (red is the color of rage and love, you see, which ultimately leads to feeling nothing). And as a timid and shy seeming Paul Banks steps out into the light, illuminated in blue, the tenuous balance between cautiousness and brashness is exhibited by the impending emotional hurricane that is Kristen Stewart, exiting from the trunk of a taxi in glitter boots as she arrives at dawn.
Rendezvousing with her date outside, she kisses him as though delivering him some sort of wondrous death blow, leading him inside to join in on the revelry, and perhaps make it all just a little bit more rife with mischief.
Directed by Hala Matar (known for short films such as Desire and L’Ariel), the playfully dark narrative is consistently punctuated in tones of red, with Stewart making out with a guy in the men’s bathroom stall here (while her oblivious date drinks in the other room) or wiping a person’s back with his own shaving cream there. Her reckless antics, which continue in the kitchen as she weirdly feeds some of the waitstaff before taking her pasta out into the main area to then shove into her date’s mouth, is indicative of the larger theme of the song, about a woman who, for all intents and purposes can’t be tamed, therefore believed to be anything more than an ephemeral presence.
With Banks singing, “If you really love nothing/What part of betrayal do you wish to deny?,” it’s only natural that Stewart should fulfill all her inexplicable whims of the evening, regardless of how uncouth they come across to others, most especially the manager of the restaurant, who can’t stop her from her apparently final goal of starting some strange dish-breaking orgy before fleeing the scene, and with it, her beau for the night. Content with the havoc she hath wrought, a joyful and giggling Stewart looks as pleased as Madonna did as she left the hotel at the end of the “Justify My Love” video. Speaking to one of the concluding lyrics of Interpol’s introductory track to Marauder, Banks describes this neo-manic pixie dream girl as more of a nightmare. Dangerous because she cares so little for men who care perhaps even less. “You can trace a hole upon your dress/And give me goodbye and a kiss.” But what else is a girl to do but love ’em and leave ’em before they inevitably choose to do the same?
