The popular band Chinaski comes with a new music video for the song Smůla from their current album Frihet. The video was directed by young filmmaker and FAMU student Františka Bakošová.
The abstract story with strong and sweet shots of ordinary life on a housing estate perfectly corresponds with the melancholic song supported only by a piano. Originally, Smůla was not supposed to be on the Frihet album at all. In the end, it became Michal Malátný’s favourite song.
“This slow song of ours with piano has a very sad story behind it. The lyrics were written by a friend and director Martin Dolensky, who killed himself in a car years ago. I recently found the lyrics on the desktop of an old computer. And the show spoke to me. I rewrote it a little bit, and that’s how the most beautiful song on the album came about,” says Michal Malátný, the singer of Chinaski.
The song originally had several variants. Chinaski played it as a full band, at times even jazz-rock-like. But it still wasn’t right.
“We were about to give up. We thought we probably hadn’t found the right way. That happens sometimes, too. It wasn’t until the last rehearsal before we left for the recording session in Norway that we said to pianist Honza Steinsdörfer: Let’s try just piano and singing,” Malátný recalls. And while the band was packing up and getting ready to leave, a new arrangement was created in five minutes. “It happens that some songs go out in the studio – and some unexpectedly blossom. And that was the latter case. It’s exactly the song for the end of the record. It’s not long, but I think it’s very strong. When we played it in the studio, we all got goosebumps. And the kids at home say to me: Dad, turn it off! It makes us sad.”
Young director Františka Bakošová was given a free hand in the clip treatment of Bad Luck.
“The beautiful thing about working with the band Chinaski was the trust. The trust shown by the gift of full freedom over the creative process, the writing of the script and the choice of the whole crew, in which we sat down as much as we could. I think you can feel it in the result and I thank everyone for that,” says the director, who based the video on combining the idea of something very abstract with a concrete form. “You’re not always just unlucky, you’re lucky. In my opinion, the important thing is to accept and embrace bad luck in life,” she adds.
The band Chinaski released its twelfth album Frihet last year. The title comes from Norwegian and means “freedom”. The musicians around singer Michal Malátný recorded it on the shores of the Norwegian Sea, in a stylish wooden studio near Ålesund. The production was handled by Brit Greg Haver, the man behind the previous successful albums Rockfield and It’s not for us to cry. Green Day and U2 collaborator Chris Lord-Alge is behind the mixing of the record.
