User Reviews

The 2012 music video "Cut the World" by Antony and the Johnsons was directed by Nabil Elderkin. You may have seen some of his work for hip hop artist Frank Ocean. Here, he actually has a pretty prominent cast: actors Willem Dafoe, Carice van Houten and artist Marina Abramovic.

Even if I clearly felt there was something artistic about it, I just cannot say this was a truly great effort here. The song is solid, but fairly repetitive and the two very talented actors are a bit wasted. Abramovic really adds nothing either. Her role here could have been done by any non-actor. The throat-cutting scene really only feels to me included for shock purpose and the tear hitting his eye does not really reach me on an emotional level. Initially, I thought Dafoe is going to do something to himself or his assistant, but that is just his aura I guess. Anyway, this video could have been so much more, really lots of potential here and for that I am slightly disappointed with the result.

This is a music video. The song is sung in falsetto, seeming to be the inner voice of a woman, employee of some male executive. But she's not on a low rung, because she has her own office, with window.

Nevertheless, her thoughts are paranoid. Without any evidence at all, not even a foggy flashback, she believes that her boss has a desire to harm her. And she believes that her femininity, rather than common sense or justice, is what is holding her back from striking out at this man.

And so, wishing to "cut the world", she kills him by slicing his neck, and creepily crying directly into his eye. I'm not sure what to make of that tear, but my best explanation is that it expresses regret at thinking she had no other choice but to harm this person. She knows her lunacy has driven her to do a terribly wrong thing.

Shortly after, we learn a more horrifying truth, that this is not isolated. Women in the same and surrounding buildings have been doing this to their (presumably male) bosses, in a planned and coordinated attack.

The murderers seem stunned, empty, and lost, perhaps a little in awe of themselves. We don't see any other person. Then it's over.

Unfortunately the overall message is one of both misogynist and misandrist bigotry -- the coordinated and presumably unpunished murder of perhaps 100 men by 100 women, something the women just had to do ... to escape the paranoia in their minds. It's inhuman.

I give this such a low score because regardless of its good technical qualities (excluding the poorly-done tear drop), it's too readily used to glorify violence against men.