The visuals from Billie Eilish’s Hit Me Hard and Soft era have thus far been unexpected. Mainly in that, instead of being “on the nose” about the songs she chooses to make videos for, she’s opted to go against the grain in terms of fulfilling expectations. Case in point, with her first single, “Lunch,” the expectation might have been for her to unleash a video that was at least slightly lesbianic. Instead, she went for a so-called 90s-inspired aesthetic against an all-white backdrop (this being a running “motif” in music videos lately, where nothing actually happens). Though the colors do change occasionally.
Perhaps what Eilish finds most “90s” about the video is the fisheye lens and her decidedly “hip hop aesthetic” when it comes to her various sartorial choices (though less nuanced types might just call it “dyke chic”). As for any nods to “lunch,” the extent of the “budget” for the video seems to have gone toward the orange slice and cherries she “sensually” places into her mouth for a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it length of time. And yet, for as “simple” as the video might look, it’s apparent that a lot of directorial effort went into it (just as it is the case that, when something is “easy to read,” the writer, too, put a lot of time into making it as such). The same goes for “Chihiro,” but the premise (and execution required to achieve it) is much more complex than “Lunch.” And it, too, isn’t exactly “on the nose” about being directly inspired by Spirited Away (released, incidentally, the same year Eilish was born). Though there are many “nods” to it, especially in terms of treating doors like portals that can lead to unexpected places and outcomes. But perhaps even more than Spirited Away, it’s easy to see the influence of her When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? video era.
Being that Eilish remarked on how this album is all about getting back to the girl she “used to be” in 2019, the year When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? was released, it makes sense that she would also return to the surreal, dream-like visuals that punctuated WWAFAWDWG? videos such as “when the party’s over,” “bury a friend,” “xanny” and “all the good girls go to hell.” Indeed, there are shades of “bury a friend” in “Chihiro” thanks to the eerie hallway scenes. For a large bulk of the video is just Eilish running through hallways filled with doors, some of which she closes on her way to opening the one she thinks will lead to her lover (played by Nat Wolff). Regardless of how toxic he is. Considering the song is named in honor of Spirited Away’s main character, it’s only right that the themes from that film should also be explored by Eilish in the video. Not least of which is the idea that constantly trying to “tap into” some realm in which there exists a version of your relationship that might not result in heartbreak can be quite exhausting, emotionally and physically.
When Eilish passes by all the open doors she closes (in a scene that mimics the one in Spirited Away where all the doors open in front of Chihiro after the Yubaba-looking knocker calls her a “plain little girl”), she finally reaches a main one that she hesitates in front of. Opening it only a crack, a strong wind blows through her hair, indicating some sinister, spectral world just beyond. At the same time, this image is also “the stuff that dreams are made of” (or, as Shakespeare actually phrased it, “We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life is rounded with a sleep”). As so many of Eilish’s videos are, particularly the WWAFAWDWG? ones.
It was at this time that Eilish explained of the album’s inspiration, “Sleep and not sleep has been a very big part of my life.” And while that might sound as though it has all the profundity of Ariana Grande saying, “‘breathin’ is about, uh, breathing,” the divide between the two realms—sleep and not sleep—has, to be sure, proven a significant source of visual inspiration in Eilish’s work. She emphasized that by mentioning in 2019, “All my dreams are lucid and so I can kind of control them and, like, I know that I’m dreaming… Sometimes I’ll have dreams where the thing that was in my dream will happen the next day.” Being so in touch with this alternate dimension, as it were, Eilish has long been given plenty of material to work with, further explaining in the same interview with Zane Lowe, “And so, not like the whole [WWAFAWDWG?] album is literally me saying, ‘I dreamed that…’—it’s not like that, it’s the feeling.” A feeling that viewers are also exposed to in “Chihiro” as she tries to catch up to Wolff only to see him get further and further away from her (literally and figuratively).
When she seemingly does manage to corner him in a room, it’s only for a brief instant. As soon as the camera angle changes though, he’s vanished. Now alone in the room, Eilish sings the tailored-to-such-a-scenario lyrics, “Saw you turn around, but it wasn’t your face/Said, ‘I need to be alone now, I’m takin’ a break’/How come when I rеturned, you were gonе away?” This, of course, also applies to what happened to Chihiro when she returned to her parents only to find they’d been transformed into swine.
Eilish then leaves the room and continues down the same hallway, where, once again, she can see Wolff just ahead of her. He stops long enough—pacing a bit—for Eilish to catch up once more, whereupon they proceed to get into a very intense (even physically) fight. As they push and shove each other, the music crescendos while Eilish sings the rueful bridge, “I don’t, I don’t know why I called/I don’t know you at all/I don’t know you.” While these lyrics apply to a situation in which one believes the person they love (or loved) might actually be there for them, it also applies to Chihiro’s situation in Spirited Away on several levels. For a start, her own parents don’t know her anymore, getting turned into pigs after gorging on “ghost food” that wasn’t for them. And then, upon getting trapped in the spirit world, the one person willing to help her, Haku (whose real name is Kohaku and who used to be a river—it’s all very Japanese lore), says he knows her yet the two have never actually met before.
In the midst of her and Wolff’s fighting, Eilish decides to run in the other direction from him, as though finally realizing that the dynamic of this relationship is never going to change. That it is doomed to repeat the same cycle of toxicity. Once she determines to “opt out,” only then does Wolff seem interested in “keeping” her, chasing her all the way back down the hall until she reaches another door that leads them outside.
As viewers are introduced to this new setting, the camerawork becomes fraught, shaky, unreliable. At last it regains its composure, so to speak, finding its way to the Outdoor Billie, now dressed in a different ensemble (pants and a sweater). She then sings, “And that’s when you found me/I was waitin’ in the garden/Contemplatin’, beg your pardon/But there’s a part of me that recognizes you/Do you feel it too?” She starts to walk along the road continuing to sing, only to have her peace interrupted anew by Wolff, who appears out of the corner of the frame like the ominous presence that he is. Seeing him as she turns around, Eilish starts to bolt like Laura Palmer being pursued by Bob. He chases after her, gaining ground far more quickly than Eilish did when she was chasing him inside the building.
Catching up to her, Wolff tackles Eilish to the ground, in a scene so tense that, for a moment, it looks like it might veer in the direction of rape. Instead, Eilish manages to get on top of him as intercut scenes of her drowning (or floating in blackness, as it were—no doubt taken from footage she got while shooting her album cover) heighten the violence and magnitude of the “scuffle.”
As their altercation gets more and more violent, it finally crests to the point where the two pass the hate portion of their relationship and go back to the love part of it…waiting until the next time the cycle will repeat. And, even if Eilish manages to suppress the memories of the pain caused by her lover once she finally does break the cycle for good, it is as Zeniba in Spirited Away says, “Everything that happens stays inside of you, even if you can’t remember it.” As for the “Chihiro” video, it, too, will stay inside many viewers for quite some time. Just as Spirited Away has stayed inside of Eilish to the point where she would create an entire song and visual centered on the essence of the “feeling” of the movie (indeed, her knack for doing that with movies in general is likely why she’s already won two Academy Awards for writing songs tailored to a certain film). Though, let’s just say that Chirhiro and Haku had a much sweeter relationship.
Genna Rivieccio
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