Y.A.S. - Get it right
New music video from Y.A.S. (Yasmine Hamdan & Mirwais Ahmadzaï), Get it Right; From the debut album Arabology. www.myspace.com/yaspopmusic
click <a href=universalmusic.fr>here for the extented version:
dir. Stéphane Sednaoui / prodco. Psycho@Première Heure
Stéphane Sednaoui is back. He's been out of the spotlight for awhile and most appreciated. Not much of a comment, more of a Slumdog Millionare / Space / Sci Fi sorta stuff. Fellini's Roma? it's a little disorganized but suits the song just fine. I think it was shot on an SLR judging from the focal point and overall soft image. SLR has a way with shifting colors since the sensor isn't designed for moving pictures the result ends up looking jagged according to the lenses used. Not that I'm saying is the case here...
It was cool to be taken so far into a world I'm not otherwise familiar with. Moreover, many of the shots were engrossing and elegant. However, I'm not sure the concept really came through and the video felt messy overall.
What's more, although I imagine it's exactly what Sednaoui was looking for, the editing was quite unusual and not in a good way for me.
Finally, the video's runtime is a little over 4 minutes but something about the video made it feel more like 7. It's not that it's boring exactly; it's more that the video is so disjointed and semi-purposeless that every shot stands alone in the mind and the whole affair drags on.
I'm glad I watched it. I think I got something from it. But whole thing came off more like an experiment in imagery than a music video.
K
i like it a lot. the very ending makes me think of it as a modern day Lucifer Rising. I wish there had been more of a narrative, or a clarity to the narrative that Sednaui might have had in his head. if there had been some story here to really sink my teeth into, on top of how nicely it was filmed, it was have been a great little mini-movie.
As it was, there is something a little disappointingly oldschool in the method of having a story inspiring the video but with no real way of connecting that narrative to the audience
but lovely to look at for sure, and very cool little world.
The video should be longer, and it holds together better in it's proper length. This is the only place I have found to watch it:
Mirwais has sought to change perceptions of arabic culture with Y.A.S and this video is best seen as part of that experiment. The observational style Sednaoui has employed rejects the exoticism normally behind the lens when western film makers travel east - and yet his editorial, fashion eye is still prevalent. It creates an image of Cairo unlike anything else you've seen - but closer to the view held by the film's protagonists, but the young arabic people who are often unrepresented in mass culture.
I think it is strange that people feel the film would be stronger with more of a narrative - but maybe that is the result of the shorter version being the only one available on youtube. It's a day in the life of essentially, nothing unusual there - they finish their days and head out, they dance, it's euphoric. Sounds like the perfect plot to a music video to me. But then promos have taken a turn for the worse in the 6 years since Sednaoui worked in the field
