|
||
|
OUTTRO
|
A BLUEPRINT FOR THE SUNRISE.. A DVD Experience by Yoko Ono IK! received an amazing surprise in the mail the other day. Yoko's new songs which were included on a special CD tucked into the back of the YES Yoko Ono book by Alexandra Munroe and Jon Hendricks, have been transformed into a visual experience on DVD, also titled A Blueprint For the Sunrise. Yoko has told IK! that the DVD is not currently available for sale. She is waiting for the right time and context for its release. In the meantime, I'm happy to be able to present a description of this new, and currently very limited, DVD. This description comes several hours - including an entire day at work - after my first viewing of the DVD. Further viewings may alter my perceptions, but I want to capture the spontaniety of that first look for this review. The DVD begins in blackness as the "The Paths" begins its haunting intro...followed suddenly by a quick glimpse of..something. Then blackness again. We get a few more glimpses of what appears to be a pattern painted on a canvas that flashes before our eyes, but finally realize, we are looking at water. Which I will come back to at the end of this review. As "The Paths" continues, the water scene gives way to John and Yoko appearing in excruciatingly brief flashes (a scene taken from the seaside footage from their Imagine video). They are about to kiss...but the scene flashes on the screen just for a second or two each time it appears. This entire first song builds tension with these frustratingly quick glimpses of the visuals. Finally, they do kiss and as the song progresses, we see quick flashes of them walking up a path, then they're in shadow.. then back to black. "Are You Looking For Me?" begins in blackness.. then an image begins to appear. It turns out to be a very close-up still photo of Yoko's face. But "still" is not exactly the correct word. As the song's mood changes and becomes more intense, the image on the screen subtly changes and seems to almost glow. As the song winds down, the image fades to black. "It's Time for Action" is accompanied by the most eye-popping visuals on the entire disc. The scenes are taken from John and Yoko's participation in a political demonstration in London, August 1971 (see Jon Wiener's Come Together: John Lennon In His Time). They are marching in a crowd. John is wearing plastic-surgical type gloves and using a bullhorn in one scene. This video has been shown many times in various documentaries. In Yoko's DVD treatment of the scene, she masterfully coordinates the movements on the screen with the strong, deep-voiced "oww-wow-wow" sound that threads its way through the song. The video images have been transformed into a mosaic effect, which become increasingly distorted as the song progresses until near the end of the song, all that is left of the images are stick-like bits and pieces that are flying around the screen. (See the cover above for an idea of how this looks). For the "Outtro," which features the peaceful sounds of birds chirping, Yoko has chosen a photograph of John, Yoko and Sean from the Family Album book of photos, backed by a woodland scene. "Outtro" caught me off-guard after the eye-popping images preceding it. The scene fades from black, into the photograph of John, Yoko and Sean (shown on this page) ..then the photograph burns more brightly, as if the sun is actually shining on the three of them. Just as this scene creates a sense of calm with the chirping birds and forest in the background, John's face begins to disappear and fade away into the woods - followed by Yoko's and Sean's bodies also evaporating into the forest, until all that is left are the trees. I was reminded of Yoko's song, "We're All Water" in which she sings, "We're all water from different rivers, that's why it's so easy to meet. We're all water in this vast, vast ocean, someday we'll evaporate together." I believe there are two ways to view this final scene. The most bleak view of it can be interpreted as the family unit that was John, Yoko and Sean has disappeared forever. Fade to black. Or, they're simply evaporating into the Ocean-Universe and will meet again someday. The way the scene strikes you will undoubtedly depend on your own spiritual beliefs or disbeliefs. The title of the CD/DVD could give us all a clue as well. As with my own family members who are gone, I like to think that even though we no longer stand together here on Earth, someday when we've evaporated and no longer carry around these earthly bodies, we'll be together again. Thumbs up to that ending for me. |
