Music Video Critique: Rolling in the Deep

Adele's Rolling in the Deep is without a doubt one of the most iconic pop songs in recent times. The official music video to accompany the song has also seen a lot of success, though controversial when it comes to how "good" it is.

The video opens with a dolly in of Adele sitting alone in a room with plastic over everything. Just several beats later, an establishment shot captures a "ninja" looking dancer in a room full of white powder. As the song continues on, Adele remains on the chair reflecting on the past. The dancer engages in intense choreography which can symbolize several different things. One of the unique aspects of this music video is that much of it is up for interpretation. For example, I view the dancer in two separate ways: first, the internal struggle which Adele is facing. The dancing in the powder clouds her mind, unable to think of anything else. The other line which I see the dancer following is the story of the relationship. For example, the dancer starts graceful. This matches the lyric "we could've had it all". This indicates that however they started was strong. As things progressed and she no longer had her boyfriend, that's when she lost it. She was "rolling in the deep".

Another interesting aspect of the video is addition of different subjects. It starts with Adele, then quickly adds the dancer, followed by the room full of waters, then broken glass, then, finally, the drummer. The addition of different subjects can represent the different stages Adele has gone through and how she feels.

Speaking in terms of technical filmmaking, the director makes a series of interesting choices. When focusing on Adele, the main camera movement is always a dolly. Matter of fact, the only other shot ever used on her is a static shot. Not once does the camera pan, tilt, truck, or zoom. It is always a dolly. This is the same for the dancer. Majority of the moves in general are dollies, however, there are several other moves done, but only on the drums/drummer, or inatimate objects. There is intentional use of slow motion to add a cinematic effect as well as intimate lighting which is made to seem like natural light all but a couple times.

My biggest critique with this video is the artistic stretch. I'm someone who loves fine art and very artistic things; however, there are a couple choices in this video that I find very hard to connect to the theme. The first being that the dancer is essentially a ninja. Why? Don't get me wrong, visually it's stunning, but thematically, it's quite confusing. The other event that I don't quite understand is the throwing and shattering of porcelain. I understand that it could represent that she's broken, but seems a bit repetitive, making think that is actually stands for something else. It also took me a while to understand the room full of glasses with water. Then, I made the connection that the phrase "rolling in the deep" comes from water/being stranded on/in water.