Search - Shakespear's Sister :: Hormonally Yours

Cinematic!

Stefan Janßen | Friedeburg | 02/05/2003

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Shakespears Sister create an original, deep- sensed
little film with five videos which were created
by Sophie Muller.

The first one is the single "Goodbye cruel world"
which is influenced by "Whatever happened to Baby Jane?"
and which describes the argument between two successful
sisters who envy each other and who want to be better
than the other one. Siobhan and Marcella introduce this
video with a dialogue about their conflict.They sing
together about a mysterious Mr.A who will never see their
face again because he left them in the rain. Siobhan sits
in the back and looks angry because Marcy is loved by her audience and she has to be second here.The second video section is the world hit "Stay" which is
also known for this excellent video full of darkness,
mystery, good and evil content and ghost skin feeling.
The story takes place outerspace on the moon where Marcy
sits sad beside the bed of her lover who is near dieing.
She begs him to stay and wants him to come to life again.
Suddenly the death- angel Siobhan comes in in a glitter
catsuit with a crown on her head. She wants to take Marcys
lover in her death kingdom and walks down the stairs to get
him. When she arrives in the other sphere she fights heavily
with Marcella and finally the lover awakes and lets the good
one Marcy win while Siobhan has to leave the arena and go
back to her own world. The video reminds a little bit of
"Return of the living death". The third video is "I don't care", also a successful hit
and inscened with a first class black humour. Marcy sleeps
and has a nightmare of Siobhan who wants to replace her
in the band by another male band member. She awakes crying
and the drama starts. The following scenes describe again
an argument between these two ladies. In many different
scene- switchings they do their worst to get it all of their
chest and do this between other people, on stage, inbetween
a meal and cry it out in the world. A kind of paranoia lays
in this video. Finally Siobhan appears in Marcys bedroom to
finish the argument and she takes her out of her bed to
hold the friendship which was near the end because the cool
Queen Victoria (Siobhan) was too cold for the hot Lady Venus
(Marcella) who was not the good for Siobhan. While she does
it she speaks a poem of Edith Sitwell called "Hornpipe".The fourth video is not that spectacular because it is a
cut of a live concert where different performances are
put together. But it is nice to see them sing along and how
they act on stage.Finally the video "Hello" is not that typical argue- glitter-
video of them as seen before. Siobhan and Marcy sit in a
place in the "somewhere" which is styled Victorian- aged.
They sit behind a glass- wall in a box where they criticize
their life, the loneliness, isolation and apathy in society
and do their sad rebellion to the outer world to listen to
each other again. Siobhan wears white rag- hair- fashion and
looks like an old woman (but still beautiful) while Marcy
represents an older, eleganter version of herself playing
the guitar while Siobhan cleans the window. The video shows
the two as friends with pigs on their knees. It is coloured
black- white and is a nice end for the video collection
because it's the most emotional one which was also a
hit- single in 1992/93.The two were "absolutely fabulous" (Marcy) and though they
did their own way well after their split it couldn't reach
the success of this time. Maybe they shouldn't have argued
too much like they did it in here but it underlines the style
of this band. It was a fresh wind in the early nineties
which was exciting, expressing, original and different. Great!"