As Tanu Muino continues to make herself a force to be reckoned with as a music video director, carving out a name for herself in American pop culture with such videos as “Up,” “Montero (Call Me By Your Name)” and “Wild Side” (“Rumors,” not so much), the responsibility of taking on the visuals for “Hold Me Closer” was a big leap. After all, the pressure put upon this single to be great in every way is undeniable. And since the song itself is merely “solid”—more an exercise in how Britney Spears could safely dip her toe back into music—the pressure on the video to be “bangin’” was perhaps even greater. Not to mention the fact that Muino wanted to do justice to the very singer/dancer that inspired her to want to direct music videos in the first place: the legendary Miss Britney Spears. Muino, in fact, expressly stated that it was the Francis Lawrence-directed “I’m A Slave 4 U” that served as the catalyst for her to do what she does today.
So it was that Muino wanted, obviously, a very choreo-heavy concept to be involved in the “Hold Me Closer” video. Being that Elton John has never exactly been known for his litheness, and Britney would “rather stay home and shit in [her] fucking pool than join the entertainment business,” it was up to whatever visuals Muino could come up with to lend some flair to the track (beyond just a rocket ship shitting rose petals). Along with some help from renowned choreographer Jacob Jonas “who does the best contemporary choreography today”—apart from Britney twirling around on her Instagram. This choreo being complemented by Muino’s preferred architectural backdrops of Mexico City, another aid in making the video memorable despite the absence of Elton and Britney.
Elton himself has used gimmicks of this nature before, most notably by having Robert Downey Jr. appear in the video for “I Want Love,” released the same year as Britney’s seminal “I’m A Slave 4 U.” Another song that would rely on a different celebrity to mitigate the fact that John himself was absent included the second single from Songs From the West Coast, “This Train Don’t Stop Here Anymore.” Starring none other than Brit’s unspoken nemesis (that is, aside from Xtina): Justin Timberlake.
More recently, Ariana Grande chose to rely on relative unknowns for an official “lyric” video of “pov” that comes across more as an “actual” video. Using the dancing talents of Cory Graves and Brian Nicholson, the Griffith Park-reliant visuals from Director X remind viewers that, sometimes, all it takes is the earnest movement of the human body to stay riveted. And that certainly seems to be what Muino is banking on as the first dancer among the initial landscape places a Bose earbud (product placement still being as relevant as it was in Britney’s 00s glory days) in his canal and the opening Elton vocals to what’s really “Tiny Dancer” start to play. Muino then pans out to show us the man is not only holding up a woman on his shoulders (who, in turn, has a girl on her shoulders), but that he’s also been gifted with the milieu of the Pachuca houses in Hidalgo.
This is immediately followed up by Luis Barragán’s Cuadra San Cristóbal, the famed pink edifice that reflects itself in the water to give the effect of being a rectangular shape (or square, if you prefer). A different pair of dancers then makes use of the entire San Cristóbal Estates equestrian development while they muck about as viscerally as any unreined horses, “running fast along the sand” just as Britney sings that very lyric. Gender-bending expectations (for people like Giorgia Meloni, anyway) then ensue as the female dancer picks up her male counterpart and he then continues to run carefreely like a bat out of hell across the cactus-filled sand. Chased by the woman who then plays in the water with him like it’s Tove Lo’s “2 Die 4” video… or Britney’s “Work Bitch” one (minus the part where she wouldn’t actually go in the water because it was shark-infested—which was metaphorically fitting, to say the least).
But apparently, too much time devoted to any cast of dancing characters in this video is frowned upon as we then transition to the next duo, dressed in blue, then to another pair (this time, two women) dressed in white and then back to the dancers we saw at the outset of the production. At another point, we get a random flash to an elderly man going apeshit over the remade song inside the triangle shape of Agustín Hernández Navarro’s Praxis building—doing so across from a Lolita-aged girl wearing a beret in her own “triangle” across the way. United by nothing except the song, it speaks to what the description of conceptualizing the video declares about “capturing an immeasurable feeling of intimacy so missing from the world through the turmoil and chaos of recent times.”
Including Britney’s own turmoil and chaos, which have been far more long-standing than post-corona anxiety…what with Spears effectively subject to her own uninvited lockdown for thirteen years thanks to that rigged, diabolical conservatorship. The one that prompted Elton to remark of reaching out to Brit for the collaboration (at his husband’s suggestion), “Britney was broken. I was broken when I got sober. I was in a terrible place. I’ve been through that broken feeling and it’s horrible.” Ah, leave it to Elton to compare his inferior drinking and drugging problems to Britney’s literal enslavement.
Elton’s histrionics/taking credit for Britney’s “comeback” aside, Muino’s attention to detail and expert pacing (for instance, those precisely-timed moments when Britney sings, “Hold me closer,” and the dancers do just that”) is almost enough to make up for the lack of either icon’s presence.
To that point, Muino, interestingly enough, called out Elton’s icon clout outshining Britney’s by noting, “Getting the best dancers, crew and access to some of the most private locations in the world [shit, she must have felt like Olivia Wilde getting access to the Kaufmann House for Don’t Worry Darling] was simple as everyone wanted to work with Elton John and be part of his legacy.” So much for Brit being the ultimate inspiration…
