The music video for What Sarah Said by Death Cab For Cutie involves a wordless story surrounding two characters, male and female. The characters' actions do not directly relate to a literal translation of the song lyrics; however the sombre mood of the music is matched in the atmosphere of the video. The woman in the video writes messages in French throughout, apparently in an attempt to gain the attention of the man. The messages translate; "He loves me", "a little?", "a lot!", "passionately", "to madness", "or not at all" which is the French version of the traditional "he loves me, he loves me not" which can be never-ending. This theme of recurrence is maintained as the song finishes, only to rewind and play again from the beginning as the characters start over from the beginning as well.
The main theme of the lyrics of the song is "love is watching someone die / so who's going to watch you die" which could allow for the interpretation that the evidently disfunctional relationship of the man and woman in the video is a presentation of watching each other die through their love. The white clothes of the woman have connotations of innocence, peace and purity, but could also suggest she is a ghost. This shows complete contrast with the black clothing of the man, with connotations of death, darkness, fear and rebellion, emphasising the abnormality and difficulty of their relationship, whilst his chain smoking could represent the addiction of love and how they can't break away from each other even if it is killing them. The constant flickering between camera angles and shots of both characters suggest a tortured existance for them, and the repetition or haunting of this relationship is emphasised as once finished, the video starts all over again.
This video presents a representation of the song, open to the audience for interpretation as a story rather than the literal miming and mirrored story of the lyrics that is often seen in music videos.
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