“Beautiful Life” – Gui Boratto

I’ve had this Gui Boratto single (from Chromophobia) looping on my iPod for the last month or so, but watching this video almost made me lose interest in it completely. The close-ups, smiling faces, extended shots, and melodramatic soft focus all reeked of a Becel margarine commercial or a similar get-fit-and-lead-a-balanced-life PSA. Despite my love for the song I didn’t dare post the visuals for fear it’d do the same for you.

But here it is. I finally managed to get my way through the entire thing to discover how it all comes together in the last 20 seconds, telling somewhat of an endearing tale. For a brief, brief moment, it made me appreciate its understated beauty. Kinda like David Lynch’s The Straight Story, a yawn-tastic film that only stirred me out of my sleep in the last scene. But there you go: I will never sit through the entire movie again just to see the ending. And I still don’t love the video — there’s too little build-up for its punchline — but at least it’s growing on me.

If you don’t have the patience, maybe watch the first minute or so and jump to the last 30 seconds. Or maybe you should just scroll down, read more entries, open up a new tab and do some more web searches while the song plays in the background. Or dang, just stream the mp3. After all, I still think it’s a good song.

Gui Boratto – Official site | MySpace | Last.fm | Wikipedia | Amazon

Similar artists: Orbital, Ricardo Villalobos, Paul Oakenfold