On the album Are You Gonna Go My Way, the cinematic Believe comes right after the solid title track. It's an abrupt downturn, but perhaps Lenny Kravitz wanted to set the right tone for the album. Believe has Kravitz singing from space: "I am you and you are me / Why's that such a mystery?" And to outer space is where Gondry sends Kravitz in his dreamy video.
The video is less a story than a texture: a mélange of images that fade in and out of their own accord. Spinning asteroids, exploding stars, and somber planets create the atmosphere.
"Who are we? / We're who we are." Kravitz in astronaut gear, inside a tiny cockpit, monitored by a tiny camera in the corner (Gondry's extreme fish-eye lens).
A white-lit, circular airdock. A bleached-white room with some plush furniture. "The son of God is in our face," sings Kravitz into the light. Shots of extra-terra firma. Negative, extreme wrap-around images of Earth become images of other worlds.
Virtually the entire video draws from the imagery of Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey. One could postulate that the video is Gondry's homage to the film.
Believe is also close in concept and execution to Gondry's Two Worlds Collide clip. The main distinction between the two is editing: Collide is a neatly cut version of Armageddon, as the song's anthemic beat and chorus require; while Believe is an immersion into another reality entirely. The images shift and float, unburdened by the law of gravity.