We’re looking at a movie that has yet* to widely be released called “Medicine for Melancholy” (yes it shares a title with a collection of short stories by Ray Bradbury but that’s where the similarity ends). The plot is something sort of along the lines of “Before Sunrise”/”Before Sunset” featuring two African-American characters in a very urban love story. Wyatt Cenac (The Daily Show) and Tracey Heggins awake after a one night stand, have breakfast, share a cab and then find themselves coming together again to explore the city of San Francisco while verbally exploring their marginalization as declining minorities in an urban setting who identify with indie culture.
We find the complex discussion of identifying with their culture, identifying with white indie culture and the love story all very compelling, but we’re wondering what’s up with the music. Even by New York or L.A. hipster standards it’s pretty fey and white. In the trailer, embedded below, the track they use starts out sounding like the relative of a girl group cover of “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow” with Phil Spector production (in that lo-fi ’60s monotone way) and perhaps that’s the vibe filmmaker/director Barry Jenkins was going for with this music.
The Village Voice posits that the soundtrack, as well as the city of San Francisco, are third and fourth characters in the movie, highlighting the schism between race and “being indie.” If that is Jenkins intent it’s very interesting but we still wonder why no alternative music is included, at least for the purpose of comparison. Why is there no claim on black indie artists expressed, exactly? It strikes us as being a one-sided answer to the complicated question of identity.
It strikes us as very interesting, however, that they stepped outside the boundaries of using urban music. Honestly, because there are so many critically lauded and truly enlightened hip hop artists out there like Bay Area group Blackalicious, Def Jux artists like Mr. Lif or Del the Funkee Homosapien, and Chicagoians The Cool Kids or Qwel. Not even a nod to any sort of thoughtful hip hop is certainly a bold path to take and we’re not entirely sure it isn’t a mistake.
Full soundtrack list:
The Answering Machine – “Lightbulbs”
Au Revoir Simone – “Through the Backyards”
Bloodcat Love – “1978”
Canoe – “C’mon”
Casiotone For The Painfully Alone – “New Year’s Kiss”
Casiotone For The Painfully Alone – “Tonight Was A Disaster”
The Changes – “No One Needs to Know”
Dickon Hinchliffe – “Le Rallye”
Gypsophile – “The One I Dream Of”
Igor Romanov – “01 01 001_SS”
Ivana XL – “Ex.Oh.”
The Octopus Project – “Truck”
Oh No! Oh My! – “I Have No Sister”
Saturday Looks Good to Me – “Meet Me By The Water”
Tandemoro – “Science Fact”
Tom Waits – “Lie To Me”
Total Shutdown – “Untitled Hidden Track 1:11”
White Denim – “Shake, Shake, Shake”
Wyatt Cenac – “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?”
*”Medicine For Melancholy” comes out in limited release this weekend (Friday, Jan 30) in New York (and possibly L.A.?)