In ‘Returning to Myself', Floria Sigismondi Crafts an Elegiac Tale of Contrasts for Brandi Carlile

In her first video since Sam Smith’s ‘Unholy’, the legendary director Floria Sigismondi is back with a striking film for the title track of Brandi Carlile’s upcoming album ‘Returning to Myself’. The monochrome video poses a question: In the quest toward selfhood, what’s desirable and what’s possible? The only one who can find an answer is Brandi and she’s alone between two divergent images: a brutalist, derelict tower and an expanse of unspoilt beach. 

​“Brandi described writing the song as both a rebuke and a response to the expectation of that return – vulnerable, frightening, exhilarating, and peaceful,” says Floria. “The video reflects the beauty and power of Brandi’s subjective reality, both as a fragmented state and one of wholeness. An elegy and a transformation, the video captures Brandi in contrasts: the lonely holy grail, ego dissolution, and a return to connection.”

No transformation can be achieved without leaving parts of yourself behind, letting some things die to make space for the new. In the film, produced by Scheme Engine, Floria balances the feelings of grief and hope in the same visual language. “Grief is something to move through and, on the other side of it, we know there is something else,” Floria says, adding “nothing is permanent. Life is like water, always changing. Hope is what drives us when the shit hits the fan.”

Rather than planning, Floria let the moments on set guide her. “I observed with heart and, in the moment, was ready to capture what felt right: the delicate movement of the body, the crashing waves and the tower above the clouds. These contrasts spoke to me. Everything is within – so the sages say, so I go within.”

The title of the song, its lyrics, and a post on Brandi’s Instagram all gesture towards an ambivalence wrapped up in the idea of returning to oneself. On her Instagram, Brandi wrote, “Why is it heroic to untether when the tense work of togetherness is so much more interesting? …because I don’t want to do it. Because I don’t want to return to myself. And that’s why I will.”

It’s an exposing and vulnerable state of mind to explore and Floria says her and Brandi “had a good talk and I psychoanalysed” to build the trust required to film such intimate inner territory. “I asked deep questions, digging out all the nuances and got hits and flashes of images,” says Floria. “I knew I needed nature to tell part of the story and a contrasting force that represented a self-made prison and the feelings of constriction she had. We built our trust on that initial call and we were off! I felt like the video already existed in some other realm, we just needed to step into it,” she adds of the otherworldly images populating the film.

Floria captured Brandi’s subjective reality through disparate images, communicating its shifting ability to feel fragmented, whole, or a combination thereof. She chose the brutalist concrete structure and the contrasting vast ocean to symbolically represent that subjectivity.

The song wrestles with both the fear and peace of returning to oneself. Floria and Brandi spoke extensively “about how vulnerability and fear found its way to real joy,” which Floria turned into images that look as if they pull straight from psychoanalytic writing. “The journey starts with Brandi facing expansive dark waters, then she’s isolated on a high tower looking out at the vast unknown,” Floria describes. 

Yet there's as much narrative in the subtleties of the film’s language as in the big statements. “The story unfolds in both the subtle gestures of a hand brushing against her face, a self-embrace and in the more dramatic imagery: relentless crashing waves, hands pulling at her face, the confinement of a monolithic corridor. Then the door opens to something else, in the sunlight where we cut to nature: cliffs, birds and water, which is the subconscious, where true desire lives. She must dive deep to pull joy to the surface. In our last shot of her, Brandi gives us an expression of joy. The journey complete.”

The video had to be shot in a single day and Floria knew she wanted to capture the beach scenes in a specific location in Topanga. Though it “made the move difficult and challenging to our schedule, the beach was very special,” Floria says. “I loved the proximity of the water to the cliffs.”

An ephemeral mood enveloped the beach and Floria recalls that “the tides that day were unusual and gave us only a tiny window before the beach disappeared.” It only motivated her more to realise the visual plan. “I was locked in on the vision of shooting there and loved everything about it: how contained it was, the dramatic rocks that echoed the tower. In the end, it all worked out, and the fast-rising water levels made the experience even more memorable.”

Scheme Engine’s executive producer Jannie McInnes says that the video was a “dream project. There was incredible synergy on set, with such trust extended to Floria from Brandi and management, with incredible label support throughout. That means so much and it’s what produces the best results!”