The video for Home, by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes, is affecting enough without its misleading disclaimer–“a collection of some of our favorite memories over the past few years”–which may confuse viewers into thinking that the movie is made out of “authentic” footage.
The Magnetic Zeroes are targeting the same lost innocence that The Arcade Fire mourns in Funeral and acknowledges in their newest release The Suburbs. But rather than sing about its loss, the Magnetic Zeros have decided to mimic the innocence to evoke feelings of loss, and to heighten that loss by appealing to a “real” authority present in the video. The song is more cheerful than the video because it doesn’t deliberately try and mislead with these images (scratchy film, soundlessness, a combined distance/intimacy with the characters, etc).
What makes the movie ultimately depressing (for me) is their attempt to hide the illusion with the disclaimer, as if the song/video was the secret (or perhaps true) life of the characters it portrays–the video in that sense is Eden, forever lost.