Director: Angeliki Pardalidou
Smile, it’s a brand-new life. Dance the night, let the worries fly…
Were it so easy, Angel. Angeliki Pardalidou’s alter-ego Angel Pardalos is a relentlessly optimistic, saccharine nightmare of colour-clashes and grating truisms. In many ways, she is my antithesis – and yet, having managed to sit through this blindingly-bright music video twice now, I found a surprising amount to like.
Far be it from me to say definitively what Pardalidou was actually trying to do with Be Like Angel Pardalos – beyond promoting a feature film named Angel Pardalos with this musical tie-in – but it feels like there is too much going on here to just take it at face-value. To me, this seems to be a satire of the cult of personality that has emerged around wellness and grindset gurus (two cheeks of the same arse) on platforms like Instagram, Tik Tok and YouTube.
The clip opens with candyfloss clouds spelling out the title, Be Like Angel Pardalos – and it is hard to tell whether AI or Photoshop has been used to create the text. Usually that would be a problem, because IFL requires filmmakers to be explicit about how they use AI in their work – but rather than adding ‘polish’ to this production by undermining human labour, it seems to do the opposite. We are immediately primed for something comedically underwhelming – and given an insight into the character we are being presented with. Someone determined to appear as they are doing well, but without the means to deliver a really convincing façade.
As Angel (Pardalidou herself) starts belting out the lyrics, this seems to have been reinforced. Her delivery isn’t bad – just not the kind of delivery you would expect for this kind of message. Asinine messaging you’d expect from a Drag Race contestant about self-belief usually arrive through diminutive warbling – but Angel rips into every line like Meatloaf.
This makes the chorus extremely funny, as though we are being ordered to believe in the message, and to immediately adapt to it.
Be like Angel Pardalos, you’re like a red rose, nothing can stop you.
Loving people around you, living the best dream, nothing can stop you.
You will be like Angel Pardalos. Nothing can stop you from believing she is happy and successful. The song continues insistently:
Dream big, don’t be afraid to try.
Love, let it guide your life. Spread your arms and touch the sky.
Dream big, don’t be afraid to try.
But, although the tune is actually quite an earworm, none of this genuinely carries us along. The more Angel asserts that anything is possible, that the world is beautiful as long as you believe in it, the more cynical and resistant to the message we become – and the more sinister the whole episode feels. Something is being covered up here – but what? Getting to the heart of that is a great hook to get us into the wider feature. And I think that’s genius – however much the forced-positivity made my skin crawl in the process.
There is an ominous build-up just below the surface. We are in the presence of someone who is trying to paper over the cracks – a bit like the viral wrestler Joe Hendry, a mediocre fighter, whose amusingly self-aggrandising theme tune insists “is so prestigious” in spite of the cringe-inducing evidence on display. As with that wrestling storyline, there is a reckoning coming in Angel’s world; there will be a break-down when expectations are not met by reality – and we want to be there to see it, and see what the character learns about themselves and the world in the process.
To that end, Be Like Angel Pardalos is also slightly reminiscent of Bob Mortimer’s wonderfully observed Athletico Mince character Barry Homeowner, a chronically divorced entrepreneur, who eternally struggles to disguise how deeply alone via ‘insightful’ music LinkedIn posts. Between accidental revelations of sexual disfunction, mistaking car sales talk for friendship, or deeply embarrassing admissions of enjoying things like Formula One racing, the teeth-gratingly optimistic bridge sees Barry sing promises of taking you “up into the business sky… where you’ll feel like you’re making love… to a golden eagle.” None of that is impressive – and the saddest part of the joke is the desperation is not to make you believe it is; rather, the aim is to convince you that Barry himself believes he is loving his life.
Are the insufferably happy lyrics sweet enough to give you cavities? Yes.
Will the giggly dance-sequences and cuddling sessions with fluffy animals make you want to be sick? Yes.
Are the glaring neons and dazzling pinks so fierce that they might permanently burn the gaudy imagery onto your retina? My doctor would probably advise me against a third watch.
But I think that’s the point. I think this is supposed to be off-putting – and it really pulls it off with flying colours if that is the case.
Overall: 4 stars
Billed in the submission blurb as “a video full of colour, passion, smiles and fantasy”, there is in reality something almost ghoulish about the enforced happiness propaganda at the heart of this music video. At the same time, it shows off some well-conceived satirical talent on behalf of Angeliki Pardalidou; and an admirable commitment not to take herself seriously. Even in the world of independent film, shedding that sense of self-importance in the name of your art is much easier said than done. So, in that respect at least, I agree. We should probably all Be Like Angel Pardalos.