Hey there! I'm taking this blog platform to archive a forgotten pride of mine, posted on my extremely old unused tumblr about a year ago. Please enjoy this screencap heavy post. We miss you Howon.
Hello here is my explanation of Infinite’s MV for “Typhoon (The Eye)” which to me, is very clearly about the group’s dynamic for the past few years. The overall story is how they were pretty fucked up and Myungsoo had to face that and Sunggyu had to lead them through it. I’m just going to go through the MV! I haven’t done anything like this in 9 years.
The MV starts out with our bloodied and resistant protag, Myungsoo, being dragged by someone unseen, with other shots of him standing in a rainy city and lying on the ground. He’s got a Box, and he places a paper bag Hood on his head. Then, the song starts.
The box is the truth of the events of the time between debut, June 9th, 2010 to September 18th, 2016, when this video came out, as the dates of both are on it clearly. Myungsoo puts the hood on after he is left on the ground by whomever with this box. So, the box is the truth, and the hood is his extra protection against dealing with it.
We have a room, the most important setting, and we have an infinity symbol over a book; the story of Infinite. We also see the seven words Hate, Fear, Sadness, Forgiveness, Desperate, Courage, and Regret.
Some of the words you can see written in the Room.
Probably the most important part of their room is the Table, where they are all seated together by force. They have to stick together even if they don’t want it, they’re legally bound by contract after all.
There’s the Lost Boy
The Leader
And ???
Our main characters. Myungsoo is tired and sad, Sunggyu is guilty, and Woohyun is mad.
The Typhoon is the problem, their feelings, their troubles and so the light and the clear weather is out, whether that be through compromise or bailing. There was a time where Myungsoo thought about leaving Infinite, and that’s the main plot point of the video. He looks toward the light and Sunggyu desperately holds him back and covers his eyes.
Sunggyu will not let him go. Then, Myungsoo is thrown on the bed by an extremely aggressive Hoya who is lashing out at him.
When Myungsoo manages to overpower him, he’s shocked to realize Hoya was suddenly Woohyun.
Sungyeol, unlike the aggressors of the story Hoya and Woohyun, is scared. As Myungsoo backs away from Woohyun he is dragged into a wardrobe by Sungyeol.
They hide, peering through the slats in the door. Sungyeol doesn’t want a part in this, he wants everyone to stop and he wants his friend to stay with him and stay safe, to stay in Infinite.
Sungjong appears away from the room, our first setting change since the intro. He’s holding onto Myungsoo but isn’t trying nearly as hard as Sunggyu and is facing away from him. Of course he doesn’t want him to leave but part of him knows there’s only so much he can do. Maybe he’s just trying because that’s what he’s supposed to do.
We’re back at the table during the first dance break of the song, a very intense bit.
Sungyeol is tired, the only member not sitting up. This is affecting him much more than the other secondary characters.
These three look away from the camera around at each other or possibly at nothing. To contrast, we then have the main characters.
Sunggyu is somehow still hopeful, he sees the way out.
Our first eye contact at this table meeting, he’s teary.
Everyone else gets a good second of clear closeup and only Myungsoo looks at the camera except,
Woohyun’s shot is moving much faster than the others, and doesn’t give a good look at his face. He’s still so angry, he’s the villain.
Sungjong is alone in the rain looking downward.
He touches Myungsoo’s face, a seemingly comforting gesture, but his expression and the setting say otherwise. He’s hit by the typhoon, hes reigned, he’s sorry. He’s letting Myungsoo go because he himself is soaking too.
Woohyun’s setting is snow and grey clouds and industry; cold. He realizes his impact on Myungsoo and is sorry for it.
Unlike with Sungjong, Myungsoo responds to Woohyun’s touch, and sobs.He needed it from Woohyun the most, needed to know that he wasn’t the sole purpose for his anger, that he wasn’t being rejected. But it isn’t a hug, just a hand on a shoulder, Woohyun is still unhappy.
Hoya attacks Myungsoo again. The car represents danger in this shot, the lights and darkness and smoke make it seem unsafe and mysterious. Myungsoo doesn’t fight back this time.
Suddenly they’re inside the car, changing it to a sanctuary like Sungyeol’s closet. They’re in it together, in the back seat, showing that they’re on equal footing. Myungsoo falls on Hoya’s lap, exhausted.
Hoya then holds him instead of just letting him lie there. Hoya is mad and has been mad but he still loves Myungsoo and wants him to be safe. Myungsoo in the lightning and the rain, takes his paper bag hood off and just stares, he’s seen the worst, accepted the situation around him.
Myungsoo’s back in the Room with the Box.
Except for the occasional lens flare, the shots have been pretty straightforward. Here, as he’s on the ground crying, there’s a bit of a blurring effect showing that he’s really struggling.
The Eye Of The Typhoon.
Everyone’s together in The Room standing facing outward instead of sitting facing each other. They’ve stopped being in their confined space putting their Shitty Weather at each other and are sanding, together, strong against the winds outside of themselves. The Room is a mess more than it was but unlike in previous shots, it’s full of light. Sunggyu holds a lamp, prepping to end all this. The Box is present but to the side, no longer the mysterious important item in the video, it’s barely noticeable. They wont forget their past but they are ready to truly treat it as such, to start their future.
the Leader’s work has paid off, they’ve come together to move into the light, the clear sky, away from the mess. He’s standing in the center with Myungsoo and Sungjong on the left, Myungsoo closest to him and Woohyun, Hoya, and Sungyeol on the right with Dongwoo’s back to him Slightly to the right probably just so u can see him. We have the passive side and aggressive side, with Myungsoo being the most hurt and Woohyun doing the most hurting. Dongwoo is the the light, he’s most ready to face it naturally from the window, he was Not part of this problem, he wanted, like Sunggyu, for it to be normal but Sunggyu had no choice but to be part of it, to be the center as it’s his job.
Although within the room it seems like the light is coming from outside, we see here that it’s coming from within. They’ve made it happen themselves, which is clearly shown as Sunggyu turns the lamp on,
Waking up the Myungsoo from the opening scenes.
Through the hole in the hood he immediately sees a lamp, the lamp that Sunggyu turned on. They couldn’t naturally pass through the typhoon, they had to come together and turn on the lamp to move forward but it did the job all the same. There’s no rain or lightning or snow or anything, just Myungsoo removing his hood.
This time there’s no box, just the final shot, presumably Myungsoo’s wallet with a polaroid of a very young Infinite having fallen out. Their past isn’t boxed up, it’s just part of life. A family photo he keeps with him to have them with him too.
We also have the two dance shot settings.
Not a lot to say but still noteworthy. The first, outside the building, the Room, with no storm. Some dust, but the weather is perfectly fine, so this exists in the current time, 9/19/2016 and onward, giving us a glimpse of the happy ending. Then the white garage, which is their life as idols. If all the settings, weather, furniture, etc, represent thoughts and feelings then here there’s nothing. Just cameras and bright lights and some smoke. White usually brings to mind sterile, blank, nothing. As idols they are blank slates. Maybe the smoke is their issues slowly seeping in and interfering with their work, which is most of their lives.
So, to the keywords. I’m not super set on these and I haven’t looked into official info on any of this because I wanted to write my own interpretation! So I could be very wrong!
Sungyeol is very obviously Fear. It says so on the door of the wardrobe he’s hiding in. He’s literally hiding in a wardrobe. Bam.
I’m gonna say Woohyun is Hate. Because of the placement of Hate and Regret in the room I want to say that Hoya is Hate because he starts off presumably off the bed, being the one that pushed Myungsoo on it, and Woohyun appeared already on it, but because of Woohyun’s overall aggressiveness in the whole video, it really seems the other way around. I’m probably wrong but I’m sticking with it.
So, Hoya is Regret. Though he’s the most physically aggressive, his big scene seems more like friends, and Woohyun’s has a much stronger senior/junior vibe. Myungsoo takes the initiative to rest on Hoya’s lap, even though Hoya fights him, Myungsoo still trusts him. With Woohyun, Myungsoo receives the comfort and breaks down because of it. So, in comparison, the comfort Hoya provides stands out a lot more. He’s passive but then puts his arm around Myungsoo, he wants to protect him instead of hurt him, he Regrets it. It focuses on his own feelings as opposed to Woohyun’s scene which focuses on Mungsoo. Regret is an individual act, hate requires a more obvious target.
Dongwoo is forgiveness. He didn’t have a big scene, he didn’t have a significant conflict. He was just along for the ride by being in the group. He’s not going to fight with anyone, not going to hide from anyone, not going to cry over anyone, he forgives.
Sungjong is Sadness. Like Sungyeol, there’s very obvious symbolism indicating sadness; rain, facing downward, general passiveness, are all pretty sad imagery.
The last two are a bit harder to decide who is who. But I’m gonna say Sunggyu is Courage. He refuses to give up on Myungsoo, focuses on moving the group on and taking his leader role and doing everything he can to fulfill it.
So Myungsoo is Desperate. He seems so be in a kind of Alice in Wonderland situation, being thrown around among members trying to get where he needs to be or where’s safer for him. He needs support and comfort, he falls on Hoya and cries over Woohyun, he’s desperate for release of this pain and stress, he needs so much.
The End! The lyrics and dance definitely tie in to the Typhoon and could be said to relate to be about Infinite too but I’m not very good at that lol.
No comments:
Post a Comment