“Protège-moi” (in English: Protect me) is an alternative rock song from the band Placebo. Placebo is, in fact, a British band, and this was song first released under its original English title “Protect Me from What I Want” in the album “Sleeping the Ghost”, in the year 2003. But the band re-released the song with French lyrics as a single solely in France. Gaspar Noé videographed the music video for this song.

Placebo Rock Band

Protège-Moi Music Video from Placebo

Although the music video for Protège-moi was released in 2004, Gaspar Noé had videographed it a year before, when Placebo were having a live show in Paris.

We can see many elements of Gaspar Noé’s cinematography in Protège-moi. This video music was made only a year after Gaspar Noé’s impressive Irreversible; therefore, it’s obvious that Gaspar Noé was under the effect of his own film when he made Protège-moi. In fact, many of the elements that we see in this video music (which are manifested below) are those that we can locate in Gaspar Noé’s next film, Enter the Void.

Watch this beautiful video music below:

Cinema of Gaspar Noé in Protège-Moi

Protège-moi begins with a card flickering with bright colors, containing the title of the song in very large typography. The card is replaced with an out of focus shot of a light bulb, and simultaneously we hear some sort of noise which is nonexistent in the official song. Then the camera drops down sideways until it pauses on a topless girl standing in front of a mirror. The image which is out of focus at first gradually comes into focus; but this coming in and out focus is continuous throughout the video music. The major light in the frame is bright red, but when another girl approaches the girl in front of the mirror kissing her and leading her through a hall, bright red, yellow, and purple colors also add.

When the two girls pass through the hall and enter a bigger room, we see scenes of a couple of boys and girls in an orgy. Gaspar Noé shows the naked bodies of these people performing seks act, without any guise. The camera flies around showing different people having seksual intercourse, and finally stops on the two very girls having seks with each other.

The way Gaspar Noé videographed this video music makes the viewer feel intoxicated or stoned, and as if they are present in the room where everything takes place. The hypnotic music of Placebo alongside the mesmerizing videography of Gaspar Noé make Protège-moi an unforgettable video music.

Protège-Moi Lyrics

The lyrics for Protège-moi was written by Virginie Despantes, who is a French writer and filmmaker. She made the controversial film “Baise-moi” (Fulck me), based on her novel with the same title, in the year 2000.

English Translation of Protège-Moi

Read below the English translation of Protège-moi:

It’s the pain of the moment
a plague that spreads
The party is over, we go down
There are thoughts that bring about the reasons
Eyelids drooping, faces gray
The ghosts under our beds come out
We open the door latch
of the slum we call home

Protect me from what I want
Protect me from what I want
Protect me from what I want

Aren’t we the playthings of destiny?
Remember these divine moments
high and wasted until the morning
And now we are all alone
We’ve lost the dreams of loving each other
the time that we didn’t cherish
We’re left with a lifetime to cry
And now we’re all alone

Protect me from what I want
Protect me from what I want
Protect me from what I want