Expounding on one of the larger themes of Sunshine Kitty–making a human connection at the cost of being perhaps overly visceral–Tove Lo’s latest single, “Sweettalk My Heart” offers a video to match the vocal earnestness of the song. Directed by Bradley & Pablo (with more environmentally-friendly results than the ones they gave us for Charli XCX’s “2099” video featuring Troye Sivan), Tove Lo’s longing for some type of kindred is evident from the moment we see her standing forlornly out on the street before surrendering to going back home.
Entering an apartment lit in much the same way as Selina Kyle’s (Michelle Pfeiffer) in Batman Returns, Tove Lo looks as though she might go equally as crazy from loneliness, tapping into some kind of fourth dimension as she simultaneously taps against the walls and floors. From the other side’s perspective, it looks as though she’s causing a Hype Williams-esque version of water to ripple (think the “What’s It Gonna Be?!” video with Busta Rhymes and Janet Jackson). While, on her own side, it merely looks like she’s just fucking up her apartment–tossing books around, that sort of thing. But before that, her resigned countenance as she walks in is subtly underscored by a decorative strip on her wall (resembling a kind of caution tape) that reads: “What’s everybody looking for?” The obvious answer, of course, is someone who understands them. Just one person, at the very least, to feel simpatico with. As she sits down in a chair, a series of whispering voiceovers (including “I miss you. I just wanna feel closer.”) lead up to that first ripple through dimensions. And it all starts with the text, “come online xxx” sent through the ether of her phone.
Thus, from the instant she commences with the lines, “Tell me you love me/Tell me you’re mine,” we can sense the urgency of what’s about to follow. Which would be something tantamount to spirit possession as she writhes around, tears off floorboards, peels off her clothes, beats the shit out of a pillow and then finally finds a sense of calm as she opens her oven and stares into it. In some respects, it more resembles Renton in Trainspotting as he’s about to dive into the toilet than Sylvia Plath about to commit suicide. Yet one can’t help but think of the fallen writer as they watch Tove Lo crawl into another realm (with more eerie voiceover whispering along the way). What she arrives upon at the end of the tunnel, so to speak, is something of an alternate version of her own apartment, wherein she encounters another being (whom we never see, but is portrayed in that way that possessing John Malkovich looked in Being John Malkovich). Like that moment in The Prodigy’s “Smack My Bitch Up” when we’re surprised that the person whose eyes we’re seeing through are not a man’s, so, too, are we briefly shocked when we see the hand reaching out to Tove Lo is a woman’s. Arguably her own hand, in fact, as the nail polish seems to be the same color. Incidentally, Tove Lo said of the song, “In a way I’m asking the person I love to lie to me; promise things we both know we can’t know if we can keep. Because nobody knows the future. But it’s about believing what you’re both feeling in the present – that you’ll love each other forever. It might be naive, but I think that’s good. Being realistic about love makes it impossible to fully feel it.” Maybe the video is her way of saying that the person we have to lie to the most in order to love is, well, ourselves. Love is a hallucinogen, after all. And it’s one caused by the often false projections we place onto others to be our salvation when, in fact, we, the individual, are the only ones who can be that. In any case, Kirsten Dunst would do well to watch this video for some directorial inspiration on how to execute the film adaptation of The Bell Jar (if it ever makes it to the screen).
