There's a simple reason why Adele uses a flip phone in Hello video

Adele uses a flip phone in the video for her new single Hello. And everyone is wondering why. It turns out that the answer is quite straightforward.

Adele’s Hello video caught people by surprise, mainly because of the appearance of a flip phone. The director of the video, 26-year-old Xavier Dolan, has a simple explanation as to why she uses a flip phone: smartphones remind us too much of the real world.

Dolan told the Los Angeles Times that he never likes filming modern phones or cars. “They're so implanted in our lives that when you see them in movies you're reminded you're in reality,” he explained.

“If you see an iPhone or a Toyota in a movie, they're anti-narrative, they take you out of the story [...] It feels like I'm making a commercial." He added, “It's an element of the past. It's much more important than the flip and trying to identify whether it's Samsung or an AE9 or whatever."

The video was shot on a farm in Quebec and is all about evoking a forgotten past. It opens with Adele returning to an old house, opening the curtains, and removing dust covers from furniture. When Dolan heard the song, he said that he imagined the story straight away. “Just this idea of taking the phone and calling your past," he said.

It makes sense that a phone of yesteryear would be a part of this past.