Okay, I underestimated Shia LaBeouf.
Big time.
I wrote not long ago – somewhat sardonically – about his venture into the realm of performance art. Was he f’real with that shiz? Today, however, when this Sia video, “Elastic Heart” popped up in my feed – starring him and some little girl called Maddie, I gave it a try. There aren’t many times that I’ll fall in love with a video, a song, and an actor I’d negatively been judging straight away… but this was definitely one of them. Shia surprised me – he killed it. And so did this little girl who seemed like a perfect chimera of Jolie’s “Girl Interrupted” character and Natalie Portman’s from the “The Professional”.
The video plays out like a performance piece in a giant bird cage:
The thing, I think, that strikes me is the body symbolism.
Shia’s character’s guided by heart and emotion – as exemplified not only with touch (he touches his own heart – he tries to touch hers), but also by a show of upper body strength in the performance piece. While Maddie (the female character) has a full range of acrobatic qualities. She uses her whole body, while Shia’s activity remains limited to his upper body; he climbs across the floor with his arms, he scales his way to the top of the cage with them too – and does pullups at the top, and he doesn’t even use his legs to try to leave the cage. In some spiritual traditions, the concept of energy flow would dictate this means he’s guided by emotion and over-thinking – especially since his lower half (which generally signifies being rooted or “grounded” in reality) is less active for the majority of the video. Contrarily, Maddie uses her legs a good deal, and even puts them on his shoulders for one part of it – as if trying to balance him out.
But, in the end, she can seemingly glide to and fro from this psychological prison he lives in (maybe self-induced, maybe not – generally a good artist will let you find your own meaning), but she can’t force him out. Only he can do that, we assume. Instead, he screams and keeps reaching toward her with his arms, shoulders, and a violent display of raw emotions. Much like it usually is in real life, all he would have to do is change his perception to escape. Get a new vantage point. Or – in this case – just turn his body a few degrees to ease out of a bad situation. In that way it could be about addiction or bad habits in general.
In another light, though, it could have to do with Sia’s father’s mental conditions and her resultant inability to love fully later in life. Her skin is “thick” – like the cage. Her heart is “elastic” – like Maddie’s gymnastic capacity. But what’s cool is how the video’s message kinda changes depending on your vantage point. I read somewhere that Sia’s father had a split-personality or something – and it made growing up tough for her. The age disparity between the casted actors dovetails with this (pardon the pun, given the birdcage setup). But I don’t think it has to do solely with her father; rather, I think it also deals with the relationships she’s lived out as a result of that relationship. She has trouble connecting her “elastic heart” with others trying to touch her own. So much so, that she turns back into that little girl with those push and pull emotions acquired growing up around a man that was a wildcard of identities and mood swings.
You mirror what you see. Even if in a distorted manner.
And if I’m looking at it from Shia’s angle (or her potential lovers), she comes and goes with her affection – stretched, unstretched, like a rubber band. His bandage wrapped hands are the result of her biting when someone gets too near. When she’s close, it’s nice. When she leaves, it’s infuriating. Because, like her dad, she probably assumes different circumstantial personalities. Finally, when she leaves and is pulling on his arms, the camera work is pretty brilliant. You might wonder why it’s so long and drawn out, initially. But that’s just because they want to make it look like she’s trying her hardest after a five minute cat and mouse game to finally, really, truly help him out of the cage. And we think that he’s just not trying hard enough. Then, at the last moment, we see when the camera pans out – that she’s actually standing on his legs which are straddling a vertical bar. There’s no way he could get out even if he did turn sideways.
And she’s laughing.
She’s mocking him.
Brilliant.
In the end, though, Sia may look like she’s the free one because she’s outside of the cage – but she’s not. Her elastic heart, exemplified in how she’s pushing with her legs and pulling with her arms, makes her just as much as a prisoner as the man crouched dejectedly inside.
All around, this was fantastically constructed. Refreshing, really, because I haven’t been able to say that about a video and song since discovering iamamiwhoami. And – just a quick note to everyone trying to turn this into a pedophilia piece – please consider looking at it from a less narrow-minded and depraved viewpoint. At least try to figure out what the video might actually symbolize first before drawing some Cliffs Notes version of a thoughtless conclusion about it.
Finally, Shia, I apologize.
‘cause I went from eyerolling your artistic chops to loving you in under five minutes.
Maybe I’ve got an elastic heart of my own.