How do you solve a crime in a society that refuses to admit that crime exists?
That is the dilemma faced by Viktor Burakov (Stephen Rea) in the fact-based film, Citizen X. Burakov is a forensic expert in the Soviet Union. In 1982, when a dead body is found on a collective farm, Burakov is assigned to investigate. When seven more bodies are discovered, Burakov is convinced that he is dealing with a serial killer. The problem is that the official Soviet position is that crime and, especially, serial murder are a product of western decadence. With his superiors refusing to accept that a serial killer could be active in the USSR, Burakov is driven to the point of insanity as he both tries to stop the murders and keep his job. Fortunately, he has the Machiavellian Col. Fetisov (Donald Sutherland) on his side but, even with Fetisov’s protection, Burakov is no closer to tracking down the murderer.
Citizen X is based on the crimes of Andrei Chikatilo. From 1978 to 1990, Chikatilo committed at least 57 murders, with several of his victims being young children. Though many were suspicious of him, Chikatilo was protected by both his membership in the Communist party and the government’s refusal to allow most of his crimes to be publicly reported. It was only during the reforms of Perestroika that authorities were allowed to thoroughly investigate Chikatilo’s crimes. Chikatilo was arrested in 1992 and executed, via a gunshot to the back of his head, in 1994. In Citizen X, Chikatilo is played by Jeffrey DeMunn, who gives a very good and disturbingly plausible performance as the monstrous killer.
Made for HBO, Citizen X is a low-key but thought-provoking recreations of not just Chikatilo’s crimes but the atmosphere that allowed him to go undetected, Along with DeMunn, both Rea and Sutherland give great performances. (Sutherland won an Emmy.) Max Von Sydow also appears, playing a psychologist who is given the unenviable task of trying to enter Chikatilo’s mind.
Right now, if you go over to Songfacts, then you’ll get the following information about the video:
Released the same year MTV went on the air, the video contains many random images that have nothing to do with the song, including jugglers, a little person, a makeup table in the dessert, well-dressed guys on motorcycles, and a sax solo in the rain. It was fairly common in the early ’80s to throw lots of disjointed scenes into the videos in an attempt to create a memorable image.
That just sounds like somebody who solved Nik Kershaw’s riddle, and is angry that it doesn’t mean anything–according to Kershaw himself. I’m sure this video makes perfect sense.
It starts off with Rindy Ross running away from superimposed text.
She does eventually find a door that opens unto a room where there’s a little person and somebody juggling fire off to the side.
A bodyguard for her heart. And juggling the memories of old flames.
Gymnasts. They are timed to enter when she says “wildest dreams.”
Back in the trailer, she finds another door.
This one leads to a little boy sitting at a makeup table in a quarry.
And he’s in the trailer like some sorta doppelgänger?
Now there are three of them.
Maybe this is a little random.
Phew! This is something that makes sense. Rindy Ross playing the saxophone. She does that in real life.
Why it’s going on in a warehouse with water on the floor behind people on motorcycles is anyone’s guess.
I wonder if this inspired the ewok playing drums on a storm trooper helmet in Return Of The Jedi (1983).
She’s getting ready to “leave you here.”
She’s tormented by her past relationship.
The guitar is kicking in to tell us that she’s ready to harden her heart, which of course means bulldozer…
and someone with a flamethrower.
They’re here to destroy the place that keeps her trapped.
She did say she was going to swallow something. Fire is more impressive than tears, so a fire-eater it is.
She eventually makes it out of the place with multi-colored doors,…
it’s crushed,…
and set ablaze.
Okay, the video is a bit random. It probably helped give us Total Eclipse Of The Heart.
You do have to give them some credit. It isn’t completely random. You can say that the plot is lead-singer Rindy Ross trapped in her own mind where these dream-like images appear while she tries to find a way out of a vulnerable place in order to harden her heart from future heartache by having that place bulldozed and burned.
It’s also a good early example of the lead-singer-wandering-through-trippy-images videos of the early-MTV era. Hungry Like The Wolf by Duran Duran got upgraded to a travelogue. Even Going Back To Cali by LL Cool J is the same kind of thing. The big difference is that they tweaked it from Alice In Wonderland to Monica Vitti In Antonioni-land.
Needless to say, the song did well back then, and is the reason the group even exists, as it blew up from a regional hit in Oregon resulting in them getting a recording contract.
According to Songfacts, they originally released the song under the name, Seafood Mama, before changing their name to Quarterflash, where the song reached the Top 10 on the charts.
The name Quarterflash was suggested by the group’s producer, who had just returned from Australia and heard a popular Australian phrase that referred to newcomers to the country as “one-quarter flash and three-parts foolish.” With the advent of MTV, the saying held even more significance, since music videos required groups to not only sound good but look good as well. The formula of adding a quarter-flash (visual image) to three-quarters substance (song) worked for many groups, including Quarterflash, with Rindy Ross to catch the eye.
A fitting description for this particular Quarterflash video.
How do you solve a crime in a society that refuses to admit that crime exists?
Through the Shattered Lens 