Knives Out, the second single off Amnesiac is in Gondry's more surrealistic vein, detailing the relationship between Radiohead singer Thom Yorke and his "girlfriend," actress Emma de Caunes.
Apparently shot in one take, the video is actually an autobiographical look at Gondry's relationship with his ex-girlfriend, which Gondry describes below. The video is set in a small room of a city apartment. The camera progresses three times between three different locations: the TV on one wall, a bed laying on the floor, and a life-size version of the Operation board game.
Inside the TV is a cab in a passenger train, in which sits Yorke and de Caunes. As the camera returns to the TV throughout the video, their relationship deteriorates from vacation camera flashes to cartoonishly deadly fighting. During the fight, Yorke shows a huge engagement ring to de Caunes, which she accepts, then grabs her side in anguish. Then, outside the TV, a hand touches the rewind button. The two view their relationship in reverse in the train window, and pass glib smiles to each other.
On the mattress in the middle of the floor is Thom Yorke, looking largely afraid. Our second view of this location is quite odd. Yorke reveals under his sheets three people eating feverishly on his feet, which are small roasted turkeys. The third pass of the bed shows no Yorke, simply the previously mentioned engagement ring on the mattress.
The Operation table is the busiest place in the apartment, as it shows de Caunes being operated on by a medical staff (one of whom is a walking screen, showing de Caunes' vital signs). As de Caunes is operated on, a red light shines on her face. The light recalls the red nose on the Operation guy, and her expressions of pain become the game's loud, frighening buzzer.
At the final pass of the camera, there is no Operation table: simply a skeletion with a huge heart for a head, playing a guitar in front of a microphone stand. The head-heart was also in the second pass of the TV. Yorke had put a picture of his girlfriend in his heart, but, in the final scene, the picture flies out of the heart. The camera then pans to the microphone, which has the head of a mousey Thom Yorke, as related from the line, "Knives out; catch the mouse."
The video has a cartoonish flavor, given much to the slow film speed used on the set. Restored to normal speed in the video, the characters' actions are humorously encumbered, much like people in the films of the early 20th century. The use of Operation, walking monitors, funny wall decorations, and the like also bring levity. In the context of the song and story, however, it is an uneasy humor at best.
Much of this imagery is illuminated by Gondry in an August 2001 article of REBEL, a French magazine:
"In the video that I have just finished for Radiohead, Knives Out, I reconstructed my memories. It's an autobiographical video. Emma de Caunes plays the role of my ex-girlfriend and Thom Yorke interpretates my role. I received the record the moment we separated. The video, unlike the film, is all based on memory. All these images just came to me. I hadn't managed to have any others. I suggested them to Thom who agreed. It is the story of my girlfriend who had leukaemia and the time I spent watching over her in the hospital. She is practically cured now. The speed at which the illness progresses is horrifying!
"It's terrifying, I watched over my girlfriend in hospital for weeks and weeks. All that medicationÖ I have always had a thing about thatÖ I speak a lot about it because it was a failure, not health-wise but from an emotional point of view. We split up. Why? We had separated once before her illness. I was so sad, I said to myself that I couldn't do anything. She always spoke to me of marriage, so I went to see her and offered her an engagement ring. The next day she had leukaemia. She must have already had itÖ the problem is that we got back together for all the wrong reasons. She came back to me because she was ill. We stayed three more years together.
"She is much better now. She had the will to live and excellent doctors. Guys who arrived at four in the morning. Four of the best doctors. As we lived at that time in Los Angeles, I had to play by the system and paid for everything in cash. That was a big problem for my girlfriend. She felt guilty that I invested myself so much, in the literal sense of the word. She turned everything against me, unconsciously. It's unfair and that's the reason why I did the video. It is a bit tough for her."
NME.com has posted the video. We link to them here: lo : med : hi. If that don't work, try this QT file