Video: Natalia Lafourcade - "Lo Que Construimos"

Natalia Lafourcade’s most recent studio effort has given us some trouble in formulating a meaningful consensus. Though far from a masterpiece, the Fonograma staff can at least acknowledge that Hasta La Raíz contains some of the most important songs of Natalia’s career. This admission stems, in part, thanks to the album’s visual campaign. Each successive clip has brought a unique thematic performance that’s helped underscore the beauty in the music. "Hasta la raíz" moved us as we saw Natalia carried by a crowd, drawing strength with each smile and embrace. A powerful image of community from a singer we once boxed in with idiosyncrasy. “Nunca es suficiente” took on relationship games where harmony and discord spun like a carnival ride. A third clip, and perhaps the best so far, brings to life another characteristic theme of Hasta La Raíz: solitude.

Directed by Alonso Ruizpalacios (Güeros), "Lo Que Construimos" shows Natalia battling a night of dissolution. Just as Güeros was lensed in a freewheeling, “anything goes” tribute to French New Wave, Ruizpalacios recreates the same magic for Lafourcade. The video begins in a bedroom, a conventional set up that quickly takes all kinds of turns. These fausses pistes cultivate a sci-fi tone that lends a creepy air to a mostly heartbreaking song. The clip culminates with a dance performance on an empty street. To see Lafourcade, the adult and not the infantilized indie girl of 2009, dancing like Anna Karina dressed in the plainest wardrobe (a hoody/that bed head) produces such an intense range of emotions. It’s cathartic and nostalgic, it’s devastating and uplifting. It’s wonderful.