Devendra Banhart - Carmensita | Devendra Banhart

Devendra Banhart - Carmensita

Ah, young love. It is not so often that a music video provides us with the chance to watch real love blossoming live on screen. And so we turn our eyes to Devendra Banhart and his story of good, evil, snakes, love, jealousy and rebellious beards.

It is called Carmensita. You can tell that because it says it in big writing on a brightly coloured screen. In fact, it apparently says it in two languages, though I'm unfortunately not multilingual enough to verify, I'm pretty sure though, that the scrolling screen of introduction is not directly translated.

Unless those hundreds of complex words do actually mean: 'The light of five million tears shines like the sun as the power-mad Lord Rajah terrorises the kingdom of Carmensita with his magical snake.' Which they may, yes, but it is unlikely.

It is more likely to be a funny, funny joke. As the entire video, you see, is in the style of a terrible, old Bollywood film.

That's the baddie. You can tell by the moustache. You have to be truly evil to have a moustache that good.

This is the hero. He's ... well, he's Devendra Banhart. But he's also an exiled prince. Oh, and he also happens to be displaying a mighty, mighty pube fringe poking out of the top of his comfortable trouser-pants. Hopefully, this is a fashion and will catch on in all the coolest bars and places where the hip people hang out. Literally.

This, meanwhile, is the heroine. And it is, of course, Natalie Portman, star of some Paul McCartney video last year and possibly countless other music videos still in production. Oh, and apparently she's occasionally in films as well.

More importantly, she's boffing Devendra Banhart, thus her appearance here. It is a tradition of great standing, musicians featuring their highly desirable girlfriends in music videos, so in that sense, Devendra is following directly in the footsteps of both Billy Joel (short man, first photograph) and Axl Rose (the more manly of the two things that look like girls in the second photograph)

Is that the first time Devendra Barhart has been said to be following directly in the steps of Joel and Rose? I do hope so.

Back in the "plot", the princess has been kidnapped by the evil Rajah. Standing in front of him as he tells her all the terrible ways he's going to torture her with his tremendous Homunculus Wingding (ahem), she sheds a single tear which then turns into liquid fire (of course), hits the carpet and magically conjours up Devendra.

Honestly, I don't know which Bollywood movies they've been watching for inspriation, but it's clearly nothing from the past 40 years. They're some of the shiniest, spangliest, most polished films out there most of the time.

Instead, here we have the most hackneyed, cliched version of Bollywood available. Which is all very tongue-in-cheek and funny. But, you know, if you're going to misappropriate a culture, you could at least use a typeface for the subtitles that was slightly less, you know, Zelda-ish.

At the appearance of the handsome pubic prince, Lord Rajah is apoplectic.

His moustache quivers. "You think you can defeat me with your rebellious beard?" he appears to say, though, of course, in actuality he's mouthing the words of the Banhart song being played. Which is quite odd, really. If you're watching with the sound down you imagine one thing, with the sound up it's something else entirely. It's like watching Reservoir Dogs on mute with the theme tune to the Archers playing on a loop.

A mighty battle breaks out. Devendra and the princess are attacked by Lord Rajah's terrible henchmen. And retaliate.

That's them being defeated by the snakes flying out of the lasers being emitted from Devendra's eyes. That's young love, you see. Not only has he got his new girlfriend in the video, but he's valiantly saving her, and also displaying his mighty snake-harnessing power. Wahey!
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After a few more fight moves including head-munching and a small jig (you have to watch it, really), the evil Lord Rajah is defeated, and everyone is happy.

That's Devendra doing some kind of appallingly fey bhangra-cised version of the macarena. For joy. Then they all live happily ever after.

Well, for a while. And then there's some kind of jealousy issue and the Princess - Natalie Portman, let's not forget, who is a well-respected actress as well as one of the foremost providers of geek-friendly wank fodder on the internet (it's the Star Wars connection, apparently) - gets so cross she immediately decides to immolate herself and immediately reincarnate as an octopus.

And that's the end. And, you know, we all leave it feeling very happy to see two beautiful young people so very much in love, yet slightly like we've been indulging in cheap cultural stereotypes for about five minutes, but at least grateful that we've had something with a plot for once.

And boy, what a plot. It's the eternal tale: Boy meets girl, girl gets kidnapped by evil mustachioed ruler, boy vanquishes ruler, boy and girl live happily ever after until girl turns into a cephalopod. The end.

Watch it here. Among other places, of course.

· This article was amended on August 1 2008.

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