“Alone I Break” – Korn
Video Treatment by James Montalbano

The images here are very sharp and clear. The opening five second-guitar riff will be a simple helicopter shot going over the ocean, facing the sunset. We fade to black.

As the lyrics begin, we see close ups of hands… playing guitar, bass, drums, holding a microphone. We also have macro shots of the band members. Not much of the background is visible. All that can be seen is the brilliant red and orange sky beyond the band. Almost all of these shots are done from a low angle to emphasize the sky behind them, but more importantly, to stress the mystery of what’s below them.

As they progress to the next verse, the film stock changes completely. Suddenly, we feel like we’re trapped in Michael Douglas’ flashback sequences in “The Game.” It’s filmed with an old camera, very jittery, with a heavy red and sepia tone to it. The colors are blown out, it’s flickering crazily. Imagine how some projection family footage would look if it were filmed during the Depression. Basically we’re looking at the flashbacks of someone’s life. We see a young boy. We see him taking a bath with the aid of his mother; fishing off an empty pier with his father; at a poolside children’s birthday party; sitting in his fathers car while going through a manual car wash. We see him older, watering the lawn. We see him even older, stranded on the side of the road in the rain. All of these sequences have a common ground to them, and that is the element of water. Like water itself, all of these images are tranquil, peaceful. All of these sequences also are chock-full of hand imagery. The hands washing the boy… baiting the hook… making ripples in the pool… hands washing the car… it goes on. Each sequence fades to white. 

As the drums come in during the chorus, we rapidly cut between the hands of the flashbacks and a new set of hands. This set of hands is outreached toward the sky, flailing like wild pigeons. We’re back to regular contrast and color. We cut to an overhead shot to reveal what we’ve been hiding. Korn is performing on the surface of the ocean. This could be achieved simply by having them stand on transparent platforms placed just beneath the surface, like a very strong section of glass, or something of that nature. The five of them make a pentagon that has no sides, only corners. They’re not facing each other, however. They’re each facing outward, looking at the ocean beyond them, instead of at each other. In the dead center, we see a young man, perhaps 18 years of age or so. He’s drowning. We don’t stick with the overhead shot long, and we cut right down to a POV shot from the boy’s eyes. He’s looking up frantically at the band towering over him, trying to get their attention, but to no avail. We see his arms outstretched in front of the camera (think Prodigy’s “Smack My Bitch Up”). Water splashes over the camera lens. He even dips below the surface once or twice. He can’t swim.

With that, we come back to a musical reprise of the beginning. We see Korn, more revealed than the first time around. They’re in pentagon form, but now they’re all facing each other, and the boy is absent from the middle. As this is only performance, we’re still focusing on the hands. During the performance, the camera tilts down, and lo and behold, we see some bubbles float up towards the surface.

When the next verse comes in, we see the boy burst back through the surface. We’re on his POV again, he’s struggling, and then he sinks back under. During the second-long moment when the water washes over the camera, we go back to the flashbacks. This time, everything’s not quite as tranquil as it once was. The color is darker, grainier, David Fincher-esque. The camera shakes more and is more inconsistent, jumping back and forth to different flashbacks with a more random pace. The characters in the dreams look more sinister, not smiling as much. They’re grimacing, forcing themselves to smile. It looks surreal, like Soundgarden’s “Black Hole Sun.” Instead of fading to white, all the clips fade to black. 

We approach the next chorus, and we’re back in the ocean. The boy is thrashing more violently now. The band is again facing away from him, and quick cuts of the flashbacks interject themselves more rapidly. The boy is being pulled under the water, like the opening scene in Jaws. We can’t see what’s pulling him down. He reaches frantically for the band, but they pay him no mind. 

The following sequence is the dreamy verse that is sandwiched by the choruses. The boy gets pulled under the water by the unseen forces, only to reveal Korn still performing. They’re underwater along with him, playing in slow motion. Little electrical bursts can be seen escaping from the instruments. Small schools of fish approach but depart in a hurry, as if being scared off. Watching this, the boy looks at Jonathan and mouths the words: “More to come.”

On the sharp drum beat that leads it back to the finale, the band, along with the boy, thrust themselves back through the surface of the water, this time performing to the purple, star-riddled sky. The boy is still being pulled under, and still being bombarded with the flashbacks. This time, the flashbacks are intensely violent. The windows on the car break as he’s inside the car wash, flooding him. He gets pushed into the pool at the birthday party. He slips in the bathtub and falls unconscious. A strong fish pulls him over the pier with his father. He kills his parents’ garden by over saturating it with water. Cars drive by him at night and cover him with water. This all happens incredibly fast, as he’s struggling with his last breaths. Finally he takes a peek under the water, to reveal dozens of people, all in ghostly grey and white tones, pulling him down. It’s his mother, his father, his siblings, his friends, even the car wash attendant. They are pulling him down with no remorse. He’s fighting as hard as he can. All the while, the band goes on performing and the flashbacks keep on recurring. Just as the boy is about to go under for good, a hand breaks through the water, grabs him by the collar, and yanks him out. The flashbacks stop with a halt as the boy looks up at his savior. The song draws to a close as we see that the boy’s savior was himself. 

You can’t depend on anyone except yourself. This interpretation of the song almost goes completely against the lyrical meaning, which is the whole idea. You could be alone and break, or you could be alone and assert yourself. The song’s meaning is the yin and the video’s interpretation is the yang. They couldn’t be any more together or any more apart at the same time. It’s a cycle, like life itself.