Watch Florence and the Machine’s Dazzling Short Film ‘The Odyssey’
Florence and the Machine released ‘The Odyssey’ directed by Vincent Haycock via the band’s website on Monday. The 47-minute art film strings together video clips released in 2015 of songs from the band’s latest album How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful, including “What Kind of Man,” “St. Jude,” “Delilah,” “Ship to Wreck,” and “Queen of Peace.” The latest installment includes the final chapter set to “Third Eye.”
“I was talking to [Vince] about the record and the car crash of a relationship breakup I was going through,” singer Florence Welch said in a statement. The film invokes a dual sense of richness and austerity that reflects the central themes of How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful. “The highs and the lows of love and performance, how out of control I felt, the purgatory of heartbreak, and how I was trying to change and trying to be free,” Welch said.
“The film is titled ‘The Odyssey’ because it follows Welch’s cinematic journey through the storm of heartbreak,” said Haycock. “Like the layers of Dante’s purgatory, each song or chapter represents a battle that Florence traversed … that embodied each song or story,” he said. The pair began working on the project over a year and a half ago at the Chateau Marmont in Beverly Hills, according to Welch. The pair discussed the making of the film at length in a Facebook Q&A posted on the band’s page.
Watch “The Odyssey” in full here.