Music video: Senior Living by Royksopp

This tale of an aging Bonnie & Clyde-esque couple in Seoul, South Korea was an entrant in a competition on an Australian music video website. Norwegian electronic duo Röyksopp liked it so much that it became the official video for the song it’s set to, their track ‘Senior Living’ from 2010 album Senior. Irish writer/director Neil Dowling and German cinematographer Nils Clauss are both based in Seoul, and their quirky, entertaining video contains not only a few superbly bizarre jokes, but some gorgeous shots of the South Korean capital.

The two elderly leads are both wonderful in their roles, and the directorial duo’s ability to capture inner youth on film is impressive, managing to be heartwarming and gleefully weird without being saccharine or trite.

The sheer oddness of this video’s storyline may be enough to make Michel Gondry’s head spin, but what really shines through is the wit and originality of its creators. The chopstick duel, the fake-death con and the hilarious-then-moving finale are all highlights, but the quantity and quality of ideas on display is what makes Dowling and Clauss’ video so memorable. An unabashed joy to watch, it’s a hymn to oddity, an ode to creativity and a salute to hilarity all at once.

Luke Grundy is a fervent assimilator of media living amid the bright lights of London, England. If he’s not watching films or listening to music, he’s probably asleep, eating or dead. An aspiring writer, journalist and musician, he is the creator of movie/music blog Odessa & Tucson and lives for epistemology.