Watching The Music
By Adam M. Anklewicz

Video: “Come Into My World”
Artist: Kylie Minogue
Album: Fever
Director: Michel Gondry
Released: 2002

Available on The Work of Director Michel Gondry from Palm Pictures


Any frequent viewer of MTV will have seen Kylie Minogue many times, usually in little clothing and moving to a quick dance beat. 

Kylie Minogue, best known in North America for her 1988 hit cover single “The Loco-Motion,” was part of the pre-grunge, shiny pop that filled most of the 1980s.  Over the next fourteen years, Minogue managed modest success in Europe and her native Australia, but never seemed able to match that success in the American market. She did, however, keep a loyal following there.

In 2002, Minogue made an incredible bounce back in America. The single “Can’t Get You Out Of My Head” was a smash hit and since then, her popularity has kept on growing. The video for that song featured a barely clad Minogue dancing in a clean, futuristic setting. The video for the follow-up single, "In Your Eyes," kept the futuristic feel, thought not to the same extent established in the still extremely popular lead single. But the third single released was a bit odd.

Most MTV watchers have probably seen Michel Gondry’s music videos but never known it.  Gondry recently directed the remarkable Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind, and has in the past directed videos for Björk, Beck, The White Stripes and many others. Proving his artistic genius, the French director is able to take a promo video and turn it into a remarkable short film. Taking ideas culled from dreams and childhood memories, Gondry comes up with some incredible concepts and technical wizardry.

The video for “Come Into My World,” the third single from the fast selling album Fever, is deceptively simple… at first.  The camera circles around, following a singing Minogue as she traverses a city street in Paris, France. This first time around, the pleasure is in the background characters, who all seem to be living normal lives. There’s a fighting couple, a biker who knocks over another man’s motorcycle and gets into a fight, skateboarders and many other characters. When Minogue circles around and reaches her original starting point there are suddenly two of her, and two of everyone else as well.

Gondry layers the film so that each time Minogue returns to the starting point we also see all of her previous trips. A motion-controlled camera followed Minogue on a track going on an identical course all four times, filling up the length of the song. Not only does the skilled crew double, triple and then quadruple Kylie Minogue, they also do the same with all the different background characters. On the final trip through the street we see four of the same fighting couple, four fights because of the fallen motorcycle, four skateboarders, etc.

Filmed in one shot, the layers of action that Gondry achieves are incredible. They are even more amazing when you realize that he didn’t film anything in front of a blue screen. Gondry used just well thought out design and execution to make this video. The film was layered and cleaned up in post-production so that the landscape didn’t bleed through the people. The only time in the video when anything intersects with anything else is when one of the characters jumps between traffic barriers. The design and timing is perfected so that Minogue is able to run underneath her own arm and while avoiding another copy of herself also running under her arm. It hurts the head to think of all the choreography involved. 

Perhaps the least attractive aspect of this video is how little it ties into the song, while the interesting visuals are the strongest aspect. “Come Into My World” proves that a music video is not always about the song. The music video is meant as a promotion, but the song isn’t strong enough to stand on its own. Very little links the two together. 

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