"from the Secret Garden"
As promised no separate film-music-whatever category divisions this year, simply everything meshed into one whole "realm", which is conceptually what "dispactké" is supposed to be about anyway.
peace,
Doug, Jan. '04
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Not to slight "Speakerboxx", which is mad hype too (and indeed they are separate albums, Boi's joint spoken of here also), but the conceptual "The Love Below" is simply a mesmerizing heartfelt masterpiece, the Prince album we've been waiting for all these years filtered through southern crunkified emotional musing.Not to mention it truly hit the spot in this the last of my "by 35" years. Begins with Andre searching for the "love below" itself (some say in Atlanta, some New York, some Parieee France, but who knows where "this flower grows"). Then moves to he calling himself "love hater" (everybody need somebody to love, stop actin' so hard - 'for you get your ass whooped'). |
A conversation with God where "She" tries to set him up with a love he figures don't even "need a big 'ole ass". "Cupid Valentino" wields his (pink) gun blasting love into hearts, especially his own (hence the cover photo). "Spread" is a straight up pick 'em up take 'em home deep sex bout - can't wait, neither can resist. Then the morning after there's a skit, "Where Are My Panties?" where both contemplate the casual sex not even remembering each other's names - it's okay, admirable really, but gotta "keep your cool", Ice Cold! - the second of the album's motifs - being so "cool" as to have gone "ice cold" (later Norah Jones intones that he "take off his cool"). Then the strongest track, the broken-hearted love apologia, "Prototype" - in modernist Earth, Wind & Fire mode with the gripping lyrics "I think I'm in love again. [But] if we happen to part. We can't be mad at God. I think I'm on the right track. I hope you are the one. If not, you are the prototype." He moves to "She Lives In My Lap" which finds him entrenched with a girl he cares deeply for (a woman who nonetheless muses if he is afraid of "the love below"). He loves but senses he'll lose her, leave her, "forever my fiancé" (and in the background Scarface from Geto Boys spits from "Mind Playin' Tricks On Me", "I had a woman down with me", then Volume 10 from that "Pistol Grip Pump" track, "on my lap at all times", three times, with guest vocalist Rosario Dawson interjecting: "the love below", then, finally Scarface again, "now I'm realizing that I love her", and again "on my lap at all times"). This all leads to the saddest of "The Love Below's" tracks, the misleadingly up-tempo single, "Hey Ya!", perhaps the most perfect retro futuristic pop song to get radio airplay in ages. "If what they say is 'nothing is forever'. Then what makes love the exception?" He then shouts to his boys, "What's cooler than being cool?" "(Ice cold!)" Then he just retreats to the (his) ladies and implores them to shake it, shake it, "like a Polaroid picture." "She's Alive" explores the relationship with a mother who gave him everything and did it all alone-a beautifully hypnotic piano pulsating throughout. A funky drum 'n bass Coltrane (I mean Rodgers & Hammerstein) derived "My Favorite Things" follows (who played on it?!!). "Vibrate" furthers the spiritual vibe taking things to a levitating, hypnotic level, "Motherfuck the wagon, come join the band. Vibrate, vibrate higher!". "A Life in the Day of Benjamin Andre (Incomplete)" ends the proceedings in a mysterious, searching manner. It is the only track in which Andre exclusively spits (if you can call it rapping and not talking in rhyme). Minimal, sparse. It is pretty much the story of his life as regards the years directly before and encompassing Outkast: the industry, the Dungeon, women (two loves), babies, Erykah, all of it. 'Cept he never finished the track, "that's as far as I got". (A couple of his boys end the album telling him how they think the track should end, something to do with Rabbits and Cadillacs.)
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Dismissing this film is irresponsible. Despite the gratuitous violence, despite the mind-boggling rape scene, it is beyond a doubt some of the most fascinating filmmaking one is likely to see. Far better than "I Stand Alone". There are so many engaging issues raised by "Irreversible" that it becomes hard to know where to begin. The fake "backwards" structure really just serves to mask holes in the narrative (like "21 Grams") - to brilliant effect. The discussion between the three leads on the Paris Metro about sex and bringing a woman to orgasm was candidly beautiful and titillating, confounding the relationship between the characters. |
And straight from the film's press release (some of which makes its way into dialogue in the film): Time destroys everything. Time reveals all. Vengeance is irreversible. Because time destroys everything. Because some acts are irreparable. Because man is an animal. Because the desire for vengeance is a natural impulse. Because most crimes remain unpunished. Because the loss of a loved one destroys like lightning. Because love is the source of life.Because all history is written in sperm and blood. Because time reveals everything. The best and the worst.
Balderdash? A diversion from the real purpose, which is sadomasochistic film exploitation? Misogyny? Gay-bashing? I don't know, but I sat in my seat spellbound, terrified, fascinated, moved again and again, moment by moment, with every twist and turn, with every camera shift and movement. Um, isn't that what movies are supposed to do?
Three Chairs kicked off their set with Theo Parrish on the decks spinning mid-tempo house, no, disco-soul. By this time the Music Institute tent had grown thick with anticipation of their set: Theo, Marcellus Pittman, Rick Wilhite, and the infamous Kenny Dixon Jr. (Moodymann)-Three Chairs. It felt like the Detroit techno equivalent of the Beatles at Shea Stadium in '65-heads rolling in from the sides of the tent, pushing their way up front, gossiping about who had or hadn't jumped on the decks yet, jockeying for position, dancing maniacally. When Theo stepped up everyone jump-kicked into grooving: boogie trans disco, soul, old school party anthems rolling into slamming metallic Detroit techno. Malik Pittman jumped on for Theo and upped the ante. At some point one of them dropped an old Shalamar track-a strolling bass line re-mixed in-and I myself lost it. Brother's were rolling into the tent in suits and hats with women on their arms, pushing their way up front with all the ravers off their heads jumping about, B-Boys breakin', and older cats just checking it all out on the sidelines like gangsters. Rick Wilhite hopped on the decks and things got very, very serious. The area in front of the stage was one mass of gyrating bodies twisting and rubbing against one another and grooving. People began shouting, "Detroit!!!" then "East Side!!!" "West Side!!!" and I thought Rick was gonna cut the record and let people just shout and sing. Girls and guys were thrown up into the air, held aloft and passed along by the throngs (body surfing?!!). It was crazy. More bodies rolled in from the flanks of the tent, all asking, "Kenny Dixon Jr.?"-he had yet to show. When Theo Parrish jumped back on the decks following Wilhite there was worry that the infamous KDJ was about to stand everyone up. But then I spotted him behind the stage, escorted into the tent by none other than Derrick May himself. He tapped Parrish on the leg and Theo visibly brightened, knowing he was about to pass the decks off. KDJ seemed none too happy at all of the cameras popping away everywhere-pissed at the lack of "underground". Or else it was all some kind of insane drama. (Someone later told me that he had been out at a festival parking lot all day drinking with his boys.) Before he got up on the decks he wrapped a mask around his face, Underground Resistance-style, and plopped a black hat over his head pulled down low over his eyes. Derrick May motioned to the PA guy to kill the lights in the tent and aside from a few stray strobe lights the place went even darker. KDJ kneeled down on the platform and reached his hand up blindly to adjust the mixer levels before allowing himself to be seen, waiting until the last possible moment before stepping up to the decks. When he finally jumped up behind the decks, in black mask, like some Black Panther assassin, the room just erupted: hard metallic disco-pandemonium. It was crazy. He didn't even play that long, 20 minutes? 5 songs? And then was off. Wilhite jumped back on the decks after him and finished the crowd off. Without a doubt Three Chairs, specifically Theo, Marcellus, and Wilhite, were the most fulfilling event for me at the Movement festival, some black barbecue circa 2030: old disco, hard techno, ancient neo-soul, black, white, old, young, the "intelligent" IDM contingent along with those just booty shakin' losing it. I could have done without all of the KDJ histrionics-will take beats over that any day-but the vibe was intense and truly special. I'd practically gone to Detroit to hear Kenny Dixon Jr. spin. What tip is he on? Some futuristic black family backyard party shit? The Stylistics meet Kraftwerk? Before the weekend was over I had my KDJ. It was intense; it was true.
Iranian filmmaker Kiarostami seems on a never-ending roll, the man is so subtly brilliant as to boggle the mind. He makes films like installation pieces, and in "Ten", the simple turns sublime. Stationary video shots from inside a car. Individuals in these cars filmed talking, that's it, but so much of the human condition covered throughout its ninety minutes that I thought I was witnessing the falling of the "Iranian Wall". It all looks "natural" and unscripted but of course these are actors who simply get into their characters brilliantly. I've heard that, like "Taste of Cherry", for many takes no one was actually in the car together at the same time, during particular shots the "actor" in the other seat was the director himself, which is amazing. The night scene with the prostitute picked up on the streets of Tehran (simply a conversation in the car, like everything else, the woman is never viewed) is simply amazing, more erotic than anything in "Baise Moi" or "Irreversible". It is simply amazing to me that "Ten" would get past the Iranian censors, it seems so subversive (in how I understand Iranian society), so feminist (more so than any Western films I've seen). For those who think Kiarostami is repeating himself here I beg to differ: In "Taste of Cherry" the scenes of conversations within cars are discussions that occur within a larger story, that tell us something about the lead character, the world he lives in, and how he interacts with that world. It is drama within a larger narrative. In "Ten", the conversations are the narrative itself, this is how the story is told, the discussions are the story, or "world". Pathos, yearning for fulfillment, love, self-actualization. This film is simply amazing.