Irwin Miller’s short animated video tells the story of the members of the band Bel Heir, transposed into animal figures that follow the sun all-trough America, ending their trip at the Pacific, where the sun is indeed the light at the end of the tunnel. The whole animation brought us back memories from a great American novel of the 20th century, ‘On the Road’ by Jack Kerouack. The whole trip through mountains and woods, the chase for the sun recreated the mood of a famous quote from On the Road: “I woke up as the sun was reddening; and that was the one distinct time in my life, the strangest moment of all, when I didn't know who I was - I was far away from home, haunted and tired with travel, in a cheap hotel room I'd never seen, hearing the hiss of steam outside, and the creak of the old wood of the hotel, and footsteps upstairs, and all the sad sounds, and I looked at the cracked high ceiling and really didn't know who I was for about fifteen strange seconds. I wasn't scared; I was just somebody else, some stranger, and my whole life was a haunted life, the life of a ghost.” 

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We will take this clip and analyze it both as a short video and as a music video. So, as a short video it is pretty neat, telling a story that is now a classic one – the trip to discover the inner self. The animation is amazingly expressive, pointing out through colors the central elements that lead the self through such an important quest.

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As a music video, ‘Light at the End of the Tunnel’ is catchy, and is of course helped by Bel Heir's song which stands somewhere between Arcade Fire and Grizzly Bear, sending the right indie-pop-folk vibe. The combination between the mood of the song, the expressivity of the visuals and the depths of the story gave us a final product that could be at the same time screened in a big film festival or in prime-time at MTV Rocks. Either way, it will stay in your mind for a long time.

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Written by Vlad A. G