Take on Me

The video’s main theme is a romantic fantasy narrative. It begins with a young woman, played by Bunty Bailey, drinking coffee and reading a comic book in a coffee shop. The comic is about motorcycle racing in which the hero played by Morten Harket is pursued by two opponents. As the girl reads, the waitress brings her the bill. The hero, after winning the race, seemingly winks at the girl from the page. His pencil-drawn hand reaches out of the comic book, inviting the girl into it. Once inside, she too appears in the pencil-drawn form, as he sings to her and introduces her to his black and white world. Meanwhile in the restaurant the waitress returns and believes the girl skipped the bill. Angrily, she crumples and throws the girl’s comic-book into a trash-bin. This makes the hero’s two opposing drivers reappear, armed with a large wrench and apparently aggressive. Harket punches one of the thugs and retreats with the girl into a maze of paper. Arriving at a dead end, Harket tears a hole in the paper wall so that the girl can escape as he faces the two thugs as one brings the wrench down on him. The girl, now found lying beside the trash-bin to the surprise of restaurant guests and staff, grabs the comic-book from the bin and runs home, where she attempts to smooth out the creases to learn what happens next. The next panel shows Harket lying seemingly lifeless, and she begins to cry. But he wakes up and attempts to break out of his comic-book frames. At the same time, his image appears in the girl’s hallway, seemingly torn between real and comic form as he maintains the effort to break his barriers. He escapes from the comic book by becoming human and embraces the girl. This final scene is based on the 1980 movie Altered States. —wikipedia