Friday 3 May 2013

Indochine: College Boy video

Indochine have released the video for the track College Boy, the second track to be released as a single from their album Black City Parade.

It follows the first single release Memoria

The album has been the biggest seller of the year so far, having gone to number one of its first week of release.

The video has been directed by Canadian Xavier Dolan whose film J'ai tué ma mère won three awards at Canne in 2009.

The video, which runs for close to six minutes, opens with a warning that it contains scenes that may disturb younger viewers.

It's a powerful message against violence among young people at school, particularly in the form of homophobia, the director saying he wanted to take it to the limit, not to shock, but to show that this situation is possible because theres's nothing to stop it.

Singer Nicolas Sirkis commented that the song can be seen in the context of the debate about equal marriage in France, which has seen protests both for and against, but saying that the song was written before that debate was taken into the streets.

He says that the song is a more general appeal for tolerance.


It's a tolerance not shared by the Conseil supérieur de l'audiovisuel, the regulatory body for media in France who judged it as unsuitable for an under 16 audience on account of its violent content. It won't be shown on French TV before 10pm.

One member of the CSA commented that there's enough of this story of violence, and that death is not art, violence is not art and nor is torture, and that these images don't have a place on music channels.


The director said that to say that the clip encouraged violence was completely stupid, and asked if it really was more violent than all the films that appear on our screens every day.

While the debate about the clip rages, it's certainly succeeded in raising a controversial and difficult issue for society to confront.



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