Promoting their upcoming album Couples Only, rock act Queen Kwong release new video for “I Know Who You Are.” Their first release since the 2018 album Love Me to Death, Queen Kwong’s upcoming album is due on July 12 and will be musician Carré Kwong Callaway’s third studio album.
The song and video are inspired by Isabelle Adjani’s performance in the 1981 film Possession. The film doesn’t subscribe to a single genre and is instead a strange medley of body and supernatural horror, drama and a breakup/divorce film. Anna, played by Adjani, wants to divorce her husband. Her behavior becomes increasingly erratic and violent, from neglecting her son to killing someone.
Queen Kwong references this descent into madness at several points in the video, beginning in the first few seconds of the music video. Starting out in a suburban neighborhood, she goes down the steps of what appears to be a subway station but is actually a series of tunnels. There is no natural light, only eerie flickering bulbs that illuminate Callaway’s lurching stride and deranged expression.
She addresses someone in the second person: “You play the savior/I know that behavior.” Knowing the song’s connection and references to Possession, one can assume that she is speaking to the captor or controller of the relationship, the husband.
In the video, Callaway clutches a bag presumably filled with groceries, which can be interpreted as a symbol of forced domesticity. The domestic role is one that Anna tries to escape in the film by requesting a divorce. Callaway swings the bag and crashes it into the wall repeatedly, spraying a red liquid on the surface that resembles blood as she hisses particularly charged lyrics: “At worst you’re a thief/At best you’re a liar/At worst you’ll leave/At best, you’ll leave me be.”
If the viewer believes this metaphor, Callaway’s performance of her eyes rolling into her head and jerking symbolizes her death; she is killed by ingredients, by domestic life. When she emerges from the tunnels after her “death,” Callaway is far more composed. Director Joe Cardamone leaves viewers with a final haunting image, one of violent Callaway’s silhouette in the foreground of an otherwise peaceful sunset scene.
Watch Queen Kwong’s music video here:
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