Kanye West might be the most important artist of our generation.
Not Shepard Fairey or Alexander McQueen or Damien Hirst or Jonathan Franzen or even Lady GaGa. Kanye West.
When Kanye West announced that he had made a 35-minute art film, the initial impulse was to mock the work. When he explained that it was about his relationship with a phoenix that crashed down to earth, it was impossible to miss the laughter that rang out across the popular media.
But then the film, "Runaway," named after of one of Kanye's new songs, premiered two weeks ago. And people watched it. And it sort of works.
It's a crazy piece. It's totally insane. It's a 34-minute, 33-second peek into the head of Kanye West, and it's basically exactly what you would expect, but nothing like that at all.
At the surface level, the story is ridiculous, but it really isn't the draw of "Runaway." Basically, Kanye discovers a half-naked bird-woman (Selita Ebanks) who crashed down in the woods and takes her to his house. He teaches her things about the human world, including a brief lesson in media literacy, gives her a mini-concert and then takes her to a crazy parade that features fireworks, a giant papier-mâché Michael Jackson head, kids in ominous red hoods and a marching band.
Later, the couple goes to a fancy dinner in an airplane hangar where one of the guests says to Kanye, "Your girlfriend is beautiful," adding, "Did you know she is a bird?" To which Kanye responds, "No, I never noticed that."
And then, for some reason, Kanye performs an extended version of the song "Runaway," accompanied by over two dozen ballerinas. And then there's a captivating 10-minute ballet dance break.
When dinner is served, the bird-woman, whom we later find out is the promised phoenix, freaks out because dinner is a giant turkey that looks just like her. After dinner, Kanye and the bird talk about how she has to burn and go back to her world, and Kanye tells her not to go, and then they have sex.
I won't ruin the ending, but it involves Kanye sprinting and some fire.
And the film ends with the title card, "Directed by Kanye West."
Oh, and the whole thing is set in Prague, apparently. And filmed on location. To make it legitimate or something?
The film is chock full of symbolism — some of which makes sense, some of which is ridiculous and totally heavy-handed — but I'm not going to venture there, instead leaving that up to the viewer to sort out. There's a lot of stuff that's very clearly about being judged by society, doing your own thing, looking super fly and being a creative genius.
"Runaway" is beautifully shot and scored. It features most of the songs from Kanye's upcoming album, "My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy," including the titular "Runaway." Nearly every scene could work as a stand-alone music video, and nearly every frame of the film could be a beautiful still photograph. The washed-out color palette, with a different color dominating each section of the film, shows that Kanye has an eye for this sort of thing.
As ridiculous as it is to praise Kanye West's 35-minute art film, it's also impossible, after watching it, not to praise it. It shouldn't be a thing that exists. There is no mainstream figure besides Kanye West who could have produced this film. The man is as fearless as he is crazy. If this thing had been really bad, he would never have lived it down, but it was a passion project and it shows.
The ideas are a little weird and self-congratulatory, but Kanye has basically mastered the art of the long-form music video.
The man has a huge head, but he's stopped just talking about how great he is and started trying to back it up with actual physical evidence. "Runaway" is highly flawed, but it also gets a lot right and is a real testament to Kanye's evolution as an artist. A real, honest-to-God Artist with a capital "A." It's a sight to behold. It demands rewatching, at least in bits and pieces.
A lot of people are going to hate "Runaway," which is available in its entirety on YouTube. It's a hugely masturbatory exercise in Kanye West stroking Kanye West's ego, but it's also way too weird and fantastic and fascinating to ignore. I've watched it a few times now, and I'm not actually sure if it's any good. It might be terrible.
But when push comes to shove, Kanye West actually pulled it off.
