We Were Once a Wild Thing

 The beautiful list of music video collaborations just got a new entry, and it’s so unhinged it makes Harvey Keitel playing poker with Hova look perfectly normal in comparison.

Spike Jonze, currently famous for strong Best-Idea-Ever candidate Where the Wild Things Are, just released a short film starring Kanye West, currently famous for actually being the man. It’s called “We Were Once a Fairy Tale.” I already placed a bet on it winning the Best Short Film Oscar. (Don’t know the category? Go watch Martin McDonagh’s “Six Shooter,” which won in 2005. You probably won’t forget again.)

The film, inasmuch justice as ekphrasis can do, depicts—well, who better to describe it than recess’ own film editor, Charlie McSpadden? He calls it “a meta-analysis of the self,” the camera movements “referencing Mr. West’s dissatisfaction with his own existence and a disillusionment with a larger reality.” If anyone needs Charlie for further questions, he’ll be rewatching American Psycho.

A meta-analysis of self involving a disillusioned and apparently unloved protagonist, sick music and a furry creature. What does this sound like? Where the Wild Things Are! 

Which leads to an obvious conclusion: “We Were Once a Fairy Tale” is a companion piece, the “Hotel Chevalier” to Wild Things’ Darjeeling Limited. Except, replace Jason Schwartzman with Kanye, Natalie Portman with a small animal representing Kanye’s heart and sex with self-disembowlment. As if the prospect of a meta-anlaysis of self didn’t have you dying to see it already.

Two songs soundtrack this stumbling surreality: Kanye’s own “See You In My Nightmares,” featuring Weezy F. Baby ( F is for furry), and Beethoven’s Midnight Sonata, two wonderfully disparate pieces of music. Beethoven too was once a voice of his generation.

Spike Jonze and Kanye West are two of my favorite people in modern pop culture, and “Fairy Tale” just reaffirms this. If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go watch it again.