Watch Arcade Fire’s ‘Carnivalesque’ New Video for ‘Chemistry’
Band teams with director Ray Tintori, ‘Rick & Morty’ animators for story about dog that fights sharks after falling in love with cat
A dog falls in love with a cat and fights a gang of sharp-dressed sharks in the imaginative video for Arcade Fire’s “Chemistry,” the band’s latest Everything Now visual.
In the Ray Tintori-directed video ”“ which fuses animation courtesy of the studio behind Rick & Morty with flesh-and-blood actors ”“ a scruffy dog working catering at a shark-infested wedding falls in love with the cat bride, played by Big Freedia: Queen of Bounce dancer Tootie Tootz.
The dog and sharks then battle over the cat’s love, with the fight eventually taking to the skies, leading to the destruction of the International Space Station. Eventually, cat and dog party harmoniously upon landing in the midst of Fat Tuesday in New Orleans.
Win Butler said of the video in a statement, “We’ve been big fans of Ray’s work since his early videos and there was talk of collaborating during The Suburbs shoot ”“ we were going to film it in New Orleans but then it got moved to Austin at the last minute, and Ray was caught up working on Beasts of the Southern Wild. So it was very full circle to finally be working with him in New Orleans during Mardi Gras. There is a playful, carnivalesque energy to the song; to capture that by filming literally during carnival felt right.”