Synopsis

The video unfolds as three surreal fantasies linked by desire, loneliness, and escape. A boy at his computer imagines himself surrounded by women in bathing suits. An older man wanders through a barren landscape, where desperation gives way to a strange mirage populated by dancing men. Finally, a blue whale drifts through the sky in a dreamlike sequence. The disconnected episodes move between comedy, melancholy, and wonder, echoing the song's hazy mood while presenting a world where private fantasies briefly become vivid, cinematic realities.

Factoids & Trivia

• "Kaputt" was Destroyer's first official music video, arriving roughly 15 years after Dan Bejar began the project.

• The video was made on a very small budget using resources still available to its newly graduated filmmaker, according to Bejar.

• The concept was shaped by the director's memories of early MTV, when music videos often felt strange, theatrical, and unconstrained by established formulas.

• The three episodes represent different forms of fantasy: adolescent desire, a mirage experienced by a desperate traveler, and the freedom of flight.

• The women in the first section were deliberately chosen to resemble babysitters rather than conventional fashion models, giving the boy's fantasy a more recognizable adolescent quality.

• Vantzi Vassilev, who plays the boy, was asked to behave as if he were appearing in a hip-hop video. His improvised performance reportedly exceeded expectations.

• The flying animal was originally imagined as a rock before becoming a blue whale, one of the video's most distinctive images.

• The video's surreal structure has encouraged different interpretations, including the possibility that its characters represent different stages of one person's life.

• The title track comes from Destroyer's 2011 album "Kaputt," whose polished, 1980s-influenced sound marked a major stylistic turn for the band.