Squinched Recap - Beast 12시 30분 (12:30) MV

This is a Squinched Recap of Beast's "12시 30분 (12:30)" MV.  That means I'm tired of being serious for the moment, and just want to follow my heart here.  This is the illustrated version of  the irreverent things I was thinking while writing the first entry on this MV. 

Maybe I should just start with the central conflict of this MV:

Fractious Filly

Doojoon Oo-la-la!

Doojoon vs Love Interest

I felt sorry for him at first.  She's a wild and fractious filly who doesn't want to be captured.  This little fireball has obviously been taking self-defense, effectively escaping his embraces with the Fractious Filly Flying Fist Technique, or by throwing her shoes at him.

Here are a couple of examples of the violence she whipped out on him.    

Fractious Filly Fist Technique

Shoe? Any Weapon Will Do

Taking off her shoes and throwing them...I mentioned this before, but I can't understand the thought process of throwing away your shoes in a nappy alley like this.  Who knows what that puddle really is caused by... Ew.  Maybe she called a cab.
 

Brat

Somebody give her a Midol!

Oh, I get it.  This was required by the plot to show how hotheaded she is.  Suuurrre, make the girl into a bad guy.  You just don't know what's going on.  Maybe he called her a bad name or said her feet stink, so she threw her shoes at him to give him a good whiff.  (I think she could stand to practice more aegyo.)

I felt that he could have handled this smarter - he could have calmed her with some chocolate, since everyone knows that women love chocolate.  I guess some guys would rather suffer.  Minus a point for Doojoon for not coming prepared.

I'm curious, what is the final count of Filly vs. Doojoon?   I'm thinking 

Fractious Filly 16,000    :    Doojoon 0

Anyway, the rest of these are my random thoughts.

Idol Alley

Somebody please tell me where this alley is.  Apparently, this is where the handsome lonely idols hang out.  Why didn't I know about this before?









This MV really beats into your head that these guys are lonely, and that the album name is Time.  Talk about advertising propaganda. 

Lonely Hyunseung

Lonely Yoseob

Lonely Junhyung

Lonely Dongwoon

Lonely Gikwang

Lonely Doojoon

Lonely Watch

Even the timepiece is alone and feeling discarded.  If I see one more reference to "Time" or loneliness, I might just scream.  Although, I have to admit, it looks comfortable, snuggled there on the carpet.

Lonely Drummer

Our drummer is alone, too, but it looks like he's happy about it.  Shirtless, like a single guy, casually flaunting his tattoos and shades.  (I mean, everyone else is wearing coats or sweaters...you rebel!)

I didn't think about his symbolic meaning last time, LOL.  It looks like he's on an elevator and it could leave at any time.  This might just symbolize the alleged bachelorhood of all the Beast members.

The Convenient Piano

Junhyung found the only piano for miles in this forgotten alley and very conveniently brought a friend who can also play the piano.  Hmmm...this coincidence is just too much!


He prepared well for this photo op, with this nightclub-esque setting.  Singing their troubles away.  Tra-la-la.
 

This is what friends are for:  following you down a dark alley; and being ready for ANYTHING.

What is that on his shoes?  -->

So, I guess the moral of this video is that women are uncontrollable monsters who like to hurt and maim men, which is kind of a twisted version of the "men are pigs" theme we women always complain about.  Guys, you'll just have to put up with the fact that YOU CAN'T BEAT US.  

Dude, women always win

(Still resisting the truth)

Fly Away!

If you are still here, I'm glad you made it.  Thanks for stopping by for the Squinched Recap.  Next, I'll be looking at a video from B.A.P. 

Beast 12시 30분 (12:30) MV

I'm analyzing this because it's fun and I like to.  The views expressed here are my own opinions and interpretation (and maybe long-winded...uh...)

Before we start, here's the video from Beast's official channel:

I'm interpreting this from the standpoint that this video is allegorical in reference to relationships, not the actions of an actual couple.  So we can breathe freely even though there's a dead girl (or listless girl) on the bed, because she represents the status of the relationship. 

One theme that weaves through the video is Doojoon (DJ) holding the watch and looking at it.  This makes me think all this is taking place in DJ's mind and these are his thoughts at the end of the relationship as he is looking back over the course of what happened.

The video starts with DJ sitting on the floor with the girl looking fairly dead on the bed.  It's interesting to note that DJ is holding the timepiece, stands up and looks back at the girl on the bed, then sets down the watch on the floor.  Setting the watch down could signify the end of the relationship, it's over, time is up and you have to leave it behind and move on.  (Skip to the end though, and he's actually picking up the watch, as if trying to salvage the relationship.)

Then the minute hand starts to move all the way to back to 12:00, where DJ was happy with the relationship.   It is cute, cuddly and sweet in the beginning.  As the clock moves forward,  the girl appears to be disconnected and unhappy, growing distance.

Showing them sitting together back to back is interesting.   Though they are physically close, even touching, it shows an inability to face each other.  If she is a symbol of the relationship, then he could be avoiding addressing problems that are surfacing, pretending the problems are not there.  

mom would've made me wear shoes

I noticed the Beast members are singing in desolate, barren looking sets. Go figure.

Skip ahead and they are fighting on the street.  He's struggling to hold on to the relationship.  Then she takes off her shoe and throws it.  That would be confusing if it were really a girl in a dirty looking alley throwing her shoes away.  Wouldn't she need them to continue walking down the road?  (Silly girl could step on something.  Go pick your shoes up!)    Not having shoes is symbolic that the relationship has nothing to stand on and won't go farther on that path.  It could also be saying there's danger ahead (her feet could get cut by glass.)  Or maybe the shoe just doesn't fit anymore...

Still he wants to hang on.  People are stubborn like that. 

Then they are fighting in the bedroom and she throws the timepiece which hits the floor, clearly signifying it's over.  Time up.  Game over.  No more time.

(And here we throw in Beast dancing.  YES!  More dancing please.) 

Back in the bedroom, DJ begins to struggle harder to hold on even though it's slipping away and falls from his grasp.  I don't approve of the depictions of men manhandling women throughout this video, but especially here where he shoves her.  If you look at it as a symbol though, it would be like someone arguing so much and then saying, "Fine!  Just leave!  I'm done with you."  Then sitting down and regretting their actions, moping in bitterness.
 

Wondering what's in the jar that shattered, but it's not really important.  The jar tells us that it is broken beyond repair.  No one will be able to put it together again. 

As if it's not already loaded with enough depressing symbolism, suddenly there is a winter storm inside and it freezes the romance.  Everything has its season, even relationships.  DJ mournfully reaches over and holds on, even though it is already dead.  Here, we are back in real time, because he's no longer looking at the timepiece (no longer reviewing the past).  He's experiencing the desire to not let go even though it's done.

A lonely chair sits by itself in an unfurnished gray room and it burns.  (Maybe they burned it because it was dang cold!)  Significantly, it's a chair for one person - there isn't room for two people - so it's not a loveseat.  It's a piece of furniture and could represent the home he wanted to build, or dreams of the future, or what they had built together.  His plans for the future are going up in smoke and the only thing left is burning fragments of unresolved dreams.  Nothing more final than the feeling that you have lost everything.  Heartburn.

At the end, the clock moves on but he hasn't.  Time to move on.

I was ignoring the big wall clock previously, but took another look at the video and paid attention to the fact that the clock is unbalanced.  There are too many minutes and 12:30 actually arrives before the point where it would be on another clock, at section 5 of the clock.  In other words, if 12:30 is the end of the relationship, then it occurs before DJ recognizes it.  He finally acknowledges the end at the point 12:30 would occur on a normal clock, well past the end.  Isn't that the way with relationships?  Sometimes people hold on past the point when it's over.
  

It could also symbolize that relationships don't go the way you expect them, because the hour hand at 12 is in the middle of the 12 section.  So things are a little vague and unclear, confusing just like real life.  Where is 12:30 anyway?  Because you don't know where to start counting - is it at the beginning of the 12 section, or does it begin where the hour hand stands?  Real life also holds uncertainty and can't be measured exactly.  It's not completely clear where is the end and what caused it.  From one point of view, it happened sooner and from another it happened later. 

Almost every moment of this video has a meaningful image and I think they communicate very well a longing for things to be back the way they were.  People can relate to the desire to turn back the hands of time and make things better or try to see where things went wrong.  

The MV seems to be making a very depressing comment that relationships are doomed to fail and can't be saved.  Things happen without our awareness until the romance has already cracked to pieces.  The more you try to save it, the more it slips away.  Not a Disney ending.

Bring in the lyrics and you see these are the thoughts of someone who knows they are about to lose the one they love.   The lyrics explain the broken bottle - the bottle is broken just like them.  It also explains why "12:30", because they are back to back and facing opposite directions similar to the hands of the clock, and are about to go their separate ways.   He feels time has stopped on the relationship and as he's trying to let go, he's still hoping time will resume for them, or that they will have more time together. 

So the lyrics tied everything in a little differently, but it was fun to analyze all the same before reading the lyrics. 

So you've watched the video, what do you think?

As an aside:

Beast has done two videos recently showing a dead girl on the bed and a man ("Good Luck" is the other.)  Why is the girl always dead/listless on the bed and nowhere else?  She could be dead/listless on the couch or the floor or any number of places.   I'm starting to wonder if they are making a sexual reference to women being cold in bed.  What?  I did just say that.  I suppose that a bed + man + woman clearly signifies a relationship.  So much for my dirty mind.  Did anyone else wonder the same thing?  Let me know.