Music videos are often where directors get to play with their craft and go wild with their ideas. This one, directed by Léa Esmaili for Ashnikko’s latest single, Trinkets, is nonetheless eye-catching madness within the category. It’s also aesthetically beautiful in an unexpected way.
The eccentric, high-concept visual feast was produced by Blinkink for long-time collaborators, Parlophone, and is the production company’s second creative partnership with Ashnikko, following the 2023 release of Worms, a critically acclaimed, absurdist video directed by Raman Djafari.
It blends live-action with bursts of playful stop-motion and CG, to become a series of surreal and richly stylised vignettes that follow a parade of eccentric Ashnikko alter-egos.
The video is characteristic of Esmaili’s left-of-centre style. The mixed-media director employs every technique at her disposal to create films that are bold, authentic and thrilling, from black and white one-shot sequences, roaring classical scores and 3D animation to 16mm set builds.
