Devendra Banhart "A Ribbon" by Lauri Faggioni

Director and designer Lauri Faggioni filled us in on the inspiration and back story behind Devendra Banhart's haunting video, "A Ribbon."

On working with Devendra Banhart: "My friend Lily gave me a copy of Devendra's records and I found it to be so inspiring. There's a lot of references to nature in his music, you can even hear crickets chirping in the background of some of his songs. I stayed up all night doing sketches and felt so inspired by the songs. So I thought of doing a video for him. I chose 'A Ribbon' because of its simplicity and how it has a sweetly dark tone to it."

On the video "A Ribbon": "I figured I needed something to pull you through these various scenes I had floating in my head. The song was about a ribbon and it was the perfect thing to string them all together. I liked the idea of the ribbon being the protagonist. As if it was the one singing the words. I have an affinity for giving inanimate object personalities. I thought of the ribbon as a representation of another force. Something at the center of the earth. Something magical, maybe even divine, wanting to sing with you and dance with you and sleep with you, as the words say in the song. So that is what it means to me."

On working with Michel Gondry: "Most of my influences come from nature. It's what  most of my art work is about. I'm what they call a "fiber artist", a term I'm not so crazy about but I don't know what else to call what I do. I make shit out of fabric and sting and yarn, etc. I never thought I'd be working in film, but I had this shop in the East Village in NYC where I sold the stuff I made. That's how I met Michel. He wanted to animate some birds I made for his DVD and I did some miniature sets and that sort of stuff. That was the first time I had ever done animation and it was amazing to me because it was making these things come alive. Most of the things I make are animals, so that was just fucking amazing to me to see them walk and talk. Just blew my mind. I was hooked. Then we did the Steriogram video. That was the first time I made a set. So fun. I was hooked after that as well."

Watch "A Ribbon" here (Requires the Real Player) Or, watch at Itunes.

Lauri Faggioni is repped by Partizan

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