Lyapis Trubetskoy: Capital (or Kapital)

Posted by Justin Cone

I have no idea what to make of this tripped-out critique of materialism and pop culture from Belarusian rock band Lyapis Trubetskoy. It’s gaudy, over-the-top and visually chaotic. And that’s the point.

capital.jpg

As far as I can tell, the video was produced by Cosmos Film.

Quicktime (slow) | YouTube (assy compression)

Thanks to my good friend Adam Smith for the tip. 

About the author

Justin Cone

/ justincone.com
Together with Carlos El Asmar, Justin co-founded Motionographer, F5 and The Motion Awards. He currently lives in Austin, Texas with is wife, son and fluffball of a dog. Before taking on Motionographer full-time, Justin worked in various capacities at Psyop, NBC-Universal, Apple, Adobe and SCAD.
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5 Comments

dek

Transliterating the credits on PooTube:

Song: Sergey Mihalok
Director: Alexey Terekhov, 2007

historyisaweapon

I love motionographer, but is there some secret source of radical anticapitalist motion graphics with crazy russian songs? When celebrities break the law, they get a slap-on-the-wrist sentence like lecturing a students about staying in school; it’d be great if when motion graphic artists got caught smoking dope, the crotchety judge would say: “It’s either six month on Rikers…. or you can make the wildest visualization of our modern tower of Babel. And if you don’t include a morphing tiger into a rhino, I will bust you straight back into jail, kid!” That is an alternative universe I would prefer.

ochyming

I would say anti Imperialism.

There is no alternative to Capitalism.
And there hasn´t been.

Nice work.

basilisk

What’s it all about? A bit of research into Belarusian politics gives a few possible answers. Alexander Lukashenko is the bald guy with the moustache, with the label “batska” (father) who is president of Belarus. He was elected (in an election that was alleged to be rigged by European observers) to a third term in 2006. Belarus has a centralised Soviet-style economy with little political and economic freedom. Lukashenko favours close ties with Russia, and has also had close ties with political mavericks such as Castro, Chavez, Ahmadinejad (and presumably Saddam Hussain and Kim Jong Il)
I imagine that any satirical depiction of the president is pretty radical in Belarus, maybe even dangerous. The anti-capitalist message is somewhat confusing though, given that Belarus is probably the least capitalist country in Europe. Maybe it helps get the song past the censor?
Fascinating piece, and really interesting to see motiongraphics that is genuinely risky.

30f

Wowza! Great stuff!

Maybe someday my beard will obscure the sky as well.

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