The growing sense that Héloïse Letissier, aka Christine and the Queens, aka 'Chris', is an artist apart from all the others, marching to her own tune, is strengthened by this collaboration with Colin Solal Cardo for the video for Doesn't Matter.

It begins with her lying flat out on a deserted carpark, as if she has fallen from the heights of her previous video for Girlfriend. But from that prone position, she then demonstrates her strength, sensitivity, sense of fun, and her fighting spirit, as over the next few minutes we see a relationship played out through choreography.

Working with with dancer Romain Guillermic, Chris gives a performance of remarkable physicality and charisma, and unbound by traditional conventions of feminity within music videos. As Solal Cardo explains below, that was exactly the objective, and the result is genuinely groundbreaking.

The video is here in both the English-language and French-language versions of the song. 

COLIN SOLAL CARDO:

"Chris came to me with a mission, almost a manifesto: to create together a piece that would break the traditional codes of music videos, in a raw, radical and film-oriented approach.

"Then began an intense collaboration made of long discussions and exchanges of references - new French cinema from the 90’s was a big aesthetic compass for us. Chris also expressed a strong desire to be directed not as a singer / dancer, but as an actress playing a character.

"Rather than writing a script from scratch - which is usually the norm - I decided to meet in studio with Chris and Romain to work on improv exercises that I would record in one-takes. After a few days, the structure of the film started to emerge.

"In order to preserve an emotional truth to the performance, we kept this process of long takes throughout shooting. This caused a number of narrative and technical constraints, further complicated by our common desire with cinematographer Julien Véron to shoot 16mm film.
But it was, paradoxically, the only way to break free from the mould of a storyboard, to allow Chris and Romain to keep experimenting on set and to make sure the technique was serving the performance and not the opposite.

"The finished product is definitely a labour of love and sweat. It is also a testament to Chris' artistic bravery, as well as her determination to never follow any rule but her own."