In his critically acclaimed debut feature film An Oversimplification of Her Beauty (2012), Terence Nance experimented with form, genre and notions of what constitutes black film, a black aesthetic, and black life.
By employing animation, freeze-frame effects, a mockumentary within-the-film, as well as a short film within-the-film, Nance creates a fresh spin on the boy-meets-girl love story. With a score by New York band, The Dig, the film was at times a little unwieldy, but frequently sublime.
With the experimental short film, You and I and You, Nance returns the favor, using the bands tracks “Cold Afternoon” and “So Alone” (from their album You and I) to score a clip that hearkens back to MTV’s early days, when film and art school experimentation resulted in videos that were more than just displays of celebrity lifestyle branding, and actually attempted to make art.
You and I and You opens with a black couple and their toddler walking an isolated road through a wooded area. There’s tension between the couple, who are distracted from themselves after noticing a trio of ornately made-up figures following them in dance.
The couple is unafraid, even as the trio frequently touches or gently pushes them, and continues their trek until they come upon two royal figures, a man and a woman, sitting in the middle of the road. The two figures touch hands and unleash a stream of surrealism that includes intimations of sacrifice (the baby is reluctantly handed over to a mysterious figure) and a chase that results in encounters with zombie-like creatures that spring from the earth.
The impetus is on the viewer to glean meaning from or project meaning onto what transpires, in direct opposition to the spoon-feeding of (often simplistic) meaning that happens with so much representation of blackness in the pop marketplace. Nothing is spoon-fed here. The ethereal music (dominated by airy vocals and a softly insistent beat) gives you no clue, as the images are far from a literal interpretation of the lyrics.
Swirling through it all are vague and then potent intimations of loss and sacrifice, severed or emotionally fraught familial ties, the terror of being hunted or chased as boogeymen spring up around you, and finally, contamination/rebirth.
Make of it what you will, it’s a haunting, beautiful, melancholy meditation.
Ernest Hardy is a Sundance Fellow whose music and film criticism have appeared in the New YorkTimes, the Village Voice, Vibe, Rolling Stone, LA Times, and LA Weekly. His collection of criticism, Blood Beats Vol. 1: Demos, Remixes and Extended Versions (2006) was a recipient of the 2007 PEN / Beyond Margins Award.
