When You Were Young Analysis

When we are first introduced

to this video, we
immediately see a white
cross and a girl in a white
dress. The immediate
connotations of this is that
within religion, both
Christian and Catholic, the
white symbolises purity and
innocence. The over the shoulder shot establishes the setting, and the hight of
the mountain suggests that religion over looks the whole city/country. We then
see the girl walking up to the edge of the cliff, it appears that she is going to
jump, also the fact that the cross is high up on a mountatain suggests
intertextual links with the sacrafice of christ and innocence. The long shot makes
the girl appear small and fragile to the world around her. (There is also an
alternateversion where she does commit suicide- linking in with the idea of
sucumbing to temptation leads to the fall of women within society.)
There is another scene in
the video where an image of
Mother Mary is shrouded in
red flashing lights, this
connotes a warning of either
death or danger. Its also a
form of forshadowment to
the audience, the idea of
binary opposites of sin vs
innocent is also intertextualised with the bible.
The Devils water it aint so
sweet Suggests that the
water in which the girl almost
baptises herself in is actually
tainted, linking into the idea
that she has succumbed to
the devil through temptation;
this is because of the way
she looks up at her husband
with seductive eyes, this also links to the idea of the fall of women within the
garden of eden due to the serpant tempting Eve with the tree of knowledge. But
you can dip your feet once in a little while Implies that you are allowed to fall
under the spell of temptation every so often, yet in the video temptation seems
to have tainted the purity and innocence of the girl in the video.