Review of Runaway (2010) by Willis T — 03 Feb 2011

On Sunday, October 23, 2010, all three major music networks, MTV, MTV2, and BET were streaming the worldwide premiere of Kanye West's short film 'Runaway'. The film is the visual backdrop to the artist's critically acclaimed album, titled My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, which was released a month later. It marks Mr. West's first directing debut while pushing his artistic limits into uncharted territory. The 35-minute film, which can also be called an extended music video written by Hype Williams, follows the story of a phoenix, portrayed by Selita Ebanks known for her work as a Victoria Secret Angel from 2005 to 2008; who crash lands onto earth and is taken under the care of West's Character, Griffin. The plot unfolds as West's characters attempts to teach the phoenix how to live on earth. However the phoenix's character is met with discrimination as the film explores how people on earth are intolerance of anything that is different.

The dialogue throughout the film is numbered which is ultimately a strength considering the acting can be called sub-par at best. But Kanye's directing and cinematography are his saving grace. Each scene can be summarized as visually inspiring. The focus on colors, materiality, light and symbolism are nothing less than artistic, and really begins to speak the level of detail of the film. At times it hard to not think that the film would work better as individual stills as each camera frame depicts a crafted appeal. Furthermore the high point of the film comes in the scene in which the movie gets its name, a 9-minute ballet interpretation of the song Runaway. The scene is filled with beautiful movement of the human body and the camera angles capture elements of genius.

The connection of music and visuals is unmatched as the film consists of snippets of music from the album and gives the entire record a story line. Essentially it is a new type of venture for a musical artist, but is has become the sort of thing you expect from Kanye. Although this type of endeavor has been hinted before, Daft Punk's 2001 Discovery album featured individual music videos that could be merged together to form a short anime film, no one had attempted it in this fashion. The most comparable thing out there to 'Runaway' is Michael Jackson's "Thriller" video, which was far more limited in length, or the short film inspired 808s and Heartbreaks - See You in My Nightmare in which Kanye also starred, although that was simply an interpretation for one song. Fundamental this can be seen as a step for things to come, perhaps in the future instead of music videos artist will create visually compelling videos to accompany their albums and create additional story lines. Although that type of though seems to be on the edge of wishful thinking.

Considering how original and unique a venture like this really is its hard to critic it, since it is a sort of "one of a kind thing." No artist in music, and certainly not hip-hop, has ever attempted something of this magnitude yet this is the very reason why an artist like Kanye has such a following. The only thing I can call it is an ambitious revolutionary vision of art from a man who looks to provide his fans with only the best in creativity. Simply a necessity to see for any music lover. The DVD version of the film can be found as a bonus in the deluxe version of My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy.