Synopsis

A young woman travels alone through cities and landscapes across Europe, Asia, and North America, moving through stations, streets, temples, and snowy countryside with an unreadable expression. Her solitary journey is intercut with Death Cab for Cutie performing inside an industrial freezer, where the musicians appear trapped in an environment of intense cold. The contrast suggests emotional distance and obsession: while the woman keeps moving through an expansive world, the song's narrator remains fixed on the idea that she will eventually belong to him.

Factoids & Trivia

• The travel footage was filmed across four continents, including New York City, London, Paris, Frankfurt, Tokyo, Hokkaido, Tunis, Carthage, Bangkok, Siem Reap, and Phnom Penh.

• The actress, a two-person crew, and the travel team covered approximately 27,977 miles in only 13 days.

• Much of the journey was filmed with camcorders, including a Panasonic AG-HVX200 and a consumer Canon HV30. The relatively unobtrusive equipment helped the crew blend in as tourists and supported the video's documentary-like realism.

• The final shot in Hokkaido was captured after the crew abandoned its original destination because daylight was disappearing. They got off the train at Asari and used the location instead.

• The band performance was filmed in a Los Angeles food-storage facility where the temperature stayed below 12 degrees Fahrenheit.

• The two sections used noticeably different production approaches. The travel footage favored small handheld cameras, while the freezer performance was shot on 35mm film with professional anamorphic lenses to heighten the stark, icy look.

• There are two principal versions of the video: an approximately eight-and-a-half-minute cut using the album recording and a shorter version built around the radio edit.

• The video won the 2008 MTV Video Music Award for Best Editing and also received a nomination for Best Cinematography.