Musical Monday with U2

U2 was one of the biggest bands of the 1980s and 1990s. I have a sense that people either love or hate them. Personally, I like some of their hit songs, and I can't stand others. Today's selection falls into the "like" category, and the same is true of the very interesting video that was made to promote it, when it became the fourth and final single off the 1988 album "Rattle and Hum".

All I Want Is You (1989)

Starring: Paolo Risi and Paola Rinaldi

Director: Meirt Avis

Rating: Nine of Ten Stars

A dwarf circus ringmaster (Risi) pines for the love of a beautiful trapeze artist (Rinaldi)

As is befitting the beautiful, romantic, yet somehow still haunting, song "All I Want Is You", the promotional video that was made in support of the single featuring it. I kept expected the story here to take a "Freaks"-like turn--especially with the hint that the female trapeze artist may be in an abusive relationship with her handsome lover--but that never happens. Instead, we get a mysterious, magical twist and a sad ending. I don't know what quite to make of either, but it's cool, it supports the music, and it's fun to think about what might have happened. All that adds up to me not having any complaints... although I do have a few more thoughts to bring up. I'll do that below the video, so as to keep to my self-imposed rule of not posting "spoilers" around here.

Okay... so at the end of "All I Want Is You". the object of the dwarf's love has died, presumably falling from the trapeze. I know there's apparently controversy about that inperperation, and as the video was unfolding, I thought is was the dwarf who had fallen to his death as well, but that doesn't work. First, the coffin being carried is too big, and, second, why would the now-ghostly dwarf throw the ring he'd purchased into the grave? A bigger question, though, is what does the flying sequence mean? It's very interesting, but if the dwarf didn't fall from the trapeze, then what's that flying bit all about?

If anyone can enlighten me, please leave a comment below. (The same is true if you just think I'm thinking too hard.)

And for what it's worth--I think the trapeze artist was murdered by her overly jealous and possessive lover. He made it look like an accident, but he did in fact murder her. The dwarf and his strongman friend discover, and they take revenge in some sort of gruesome and poetic fashion which I'm sure I could work out if I wanted to apply myself! (That said, maybe it was the dwarf who killed her; he climbed up and sabotaged the trapeze, thus freeing himself from his unrequited love? I like the other notion better though.)