The cruelest reality of life is that its end is inevitable. Coping with the death of a friend or family member is unimaginably painful. The music video Little Talks by of Monsters and Men depicts the grief of a woman who has lost someone she loves. The video is a representation of the difficulties a person faces when a loved one dies. In it, the characters experience a journey in which the woman’s struggles are embodied in monstrous creatures. While the song tells a story that has been told many times, the video provides an original interpretation of the lyrics. It incorporates color contrast, size and scenery in order to symbolically interpret the mood of the song as well as to highlight the important themes.

The song is written as a conversation of sorts between a man and a woman. The lyrics suggest that the man has died. So, the dialogue in the song is not directly between the man and woman. Rather it appears that the woman is grieving, either out loud or in her head, and the man is offering consolation but she is unable to hear him. At one point she states that all that’s left of the man is a ghost.  The video seems to incorporate this into the story in the form of an otherworldly being.

The video is an artistic portrayal of the woman’s effort to find peace. It features five men with different designs painted on their faces and a female character. In contrast to the story told in the lyrics, the men appear to be the ones dealing with conflict while the female is depicted as a spiritual being, seemingly the man that has died.  Almost everything in the video is colored in black and white. However, the spirit is clothed in a vibrantly colored dress. She emerges from a meteor surrounded by a show of lights and colors. The men are seen travelling through different landscapes accompanied by the spirit. As they progress they encounter different creatures. 

The band, of Monsters and Men, often uses monsters to represent different themes in their videos. In this video the monsters represent the obstacles the woman must overcome in moving on from her loss. They appear as creatures, from a two headed bird to a bearish beast. All of them are shown as dark and vicious. The monsters are also shown to be much larger than the men. The appearance and size of the monsters could indicate that the woman views moving on as an impossible task. When the men encounter the massive bear creature, they are seen looking up at it with their eyes wide and mouths hung open in terror as they back away. 

 Each time the men encounter one of the monsters they are saved by the spirit. She is seen opening her mouth and releasing a ball of bright light toward the monsters. When it comes in contact with them they vanish in an explosion of color. The spirit vanquishing the monsters for the men could be interpreted in a couple of ways. It could be a way of showing that even though the man has passed on, his spirit is still with the woman protecting her. The spirit’s role in saving the men could also be representative of the role that the memory of the man plays in the woman’s ability to fully heal. Both interpretations suggest that the man has lasting presence in her life.

Even when the characters are not fighting monsters they are seen in eerie situations. Their vehicle gets destroyed and they find themselves stuck on the side of a cliff. They travel through dark woods and a path lined with gargoyle statues, the ground beneath their feet gives out and they are plunged into water. These effects appear as more minor details but they are essential to the video.  They provide the video with a darker environment and serve as a way of showing the length of the journey. When a person is grieving their entire life can turn upside-down, places that were once familiar and comfortable can seem strange and unwelcoming. These details added in between the main sequences help to show how unescapable the pain can be after a loss.  

The colors in the video help to highlight certain sequences and characters. In the black and white setting of the video the color grasps the attention. Color is mainly used in respect to the spirit. However, the same colors that decorate the spirit also appear in another instance at the end of the video. The group is seen ascending into the clouds as birds, with colorful feathers, fly by them. The birds converge in an explosion behind a cloud, this results in the formation of a giant creature. It has five eyes, the horns of a ram, large teeth and a menacing face but its body is covered in feathers flowing with brilliant color. In the final scene, as the men stare in awe at the creature, the spirit is shown greeting it with a smile. She floats toward the creature and seats herself upon a throne fashioned out of the horns on its head. The view widens, showing the men standing before the creature as it reveals its wings, before fading to black. The colors used in the video depict the different aspects of death. The darkness is used to show the grief and uncertainty that surround death while the brighter colors represent perseverance and the hope of reunion.

There are many ideas symbolized in the final scene. Right before the group rises through the clouds there are the lyrics, “Just let me go we’ll meet again soon.” Since the man is dead this suggests their meeting in the afterlife. Thus the group entering the clouds can be seen as symbolic of the woman’s passing on from life. The creature they encounter in the clouds is interesting in that it looks hostile but is actually friendly and appears to be connected to the spirit. The creature’s scarier traits could be a manifestation of all the struggles the woman went through while mourning the man’s death. The feathers covering it could be seen as a sign of the strength it took to continue on after the loss and the beauty in the fact that the two will be together again. The two being brought together is shown by the spirit joining with the creature. The spirit’s actions and expression suggest a familiarity with the creature. She is shown smiling as she sits on her throne, welcoming the men as they conclude their journey.

The song and video combine to tell a powerful story about the difficulty of dealing with death. The monsters in the video are shown to be so much bigger than the men in an effort to capture just how small and alone death can make people feel. While the spirit’s constant presence among the men as they go on their travels represents that one is never truly alone. The woman’s struggle to find peace is resolved in her realization that death is not the end.
