Welcome Home, Son

Watch then read:


Recently, I've been slack on my film duties. There was a top ten, that despite my sincerest intentions, hit the wall at #6; I know I'll never finish it, although the top movies were pretty sweet (for those wondering, #1 was A Scanner Darkly... although that may have been #3. Anyway..). But, I've been listening to a lot of music, especially since I got my OiNK account opened up again after a brief "inactivity related deletion". All's good on that front. However, the always immortal and immoral Justin has routinely sent me new tunes to make sure at least one person can keep up with his constant music prowess, and a month or so back he sent me a tune by band Radical Face.

Now I'll admit that I don't really know much about Radical Face, apart from that they seem new, since there's no music videos on YouTube featuring their music, nor is there any decent indie movies that sport their music (Yes, I judge movies based on soundtrack selection - for the record, the best movie soundtracks are The Matrix and Stranger Than Fiction (STF because of all the Spoon songs).). However, Radical Face has this one song on their CD called Welcome Home, Son, which is nothing short of epic. Apart from getting a ton of plays from me, the song itself has always made me think it was a statement about the Iraq war. I have no idea if that's the intentions of the artist(s), but just listening to the lyrics really guides my thoughts down that path.

Anyway, I promise this story goes somewhere: Recently at my "job" at a local Museum, I saw a well-painted picture of a soldier in the desert by some 11th grader. The picture was great, but the explanation clearly pointed out how the kid was inexperienced. The art could have stood on its own without explanation; but he put his own opinions and rants right into the synopsis beside all the pieces. Art is always about metaphors; the best pieces throw things out on the table and let the viewer figure out the subject - that's what made some subpar artists (see: Andy Warhol) exceptionally famous. Of course, what the viewer sees the subject as is usually subjective, and can range. Art is like a story told through images. You either find your own story through those images (which is what I believe makes some people really like pieces, and other hate it), or you move on. It's the artist's job to point out the plot.

So, with this in mind, I created the video that was inspired by Radical Face - Welcome Home, Son. My thoughts about war are all laid out within it; and with relatively little resources, and the found footage mostly being worthless, I present to you what I believe Welcome Home, Son's story is.

-Mark

(for those wondering, I'm still working on my Marathon, ON project as well - chapter two is about half done).