Drake Releases Short Film, 'Jungle'

"...filled to the brim with a whole bunch of really Drake-y ideologies."

Since his breakout in 2010, Drake has more or less dedicated every single piece of work that he's produced to a single theme: "What am I doing?", and his new short film, Jungle, is quite honestly hard to label as any different. Clocking in at just under 15 minutes, Drake's short film takes us through an incredibly visceral journey that's set in both Los Angeles and Toronto. The King of OVO keeps true to his strengths and uses the video as a means of tackling themes that are becoming increasingly difficult to separate from him—fame, relationships, self-doubt, but most importantly, identity. Drake's opening monologue more or less voices much of what the whole piece is really about, "I'm fucking drinking more, I'm smoking more. We're out here staying up so late that it's early. I'm just worried about myself, you know? I just got to come home."

Jungle is pensive and filled to the brim with a whole bunch of really Drake-y ideologies. Of course in anything he does, Drizzy has to give a shout out to the city that raised him, T-Dot. Mixing in old footage from the different stages of Toronto's early life and some of his own home movies, Drake creates an interesting parallel between the city that he loves and himself. Additionally, the strong use of familiar colours creates a commonly-seen aesthetic—a low contrast ratio is implemented often to paint a world of black and white with little grey zone. The film features a fairly weak narrative structure, but makes up for it with many different connotative visual cues and representations.

To be completely honest, Drake doesn't really bring anything new to the table with this film. The complexity of themes are lacking, and for the most part they're the same concepts as always. What's more, the ambiguity is at an all-time high throughout the work. Luckily, Jungle does succeed in creating an incredibly dark and brooding world that has an enormous emphasis on pleasing aesthetics. The visuals are absolutely stunning, and director Karim Huu Do should be commended for this. Additionally, the film features a strong score created by Noah "40" Shebib, and several new tracks from Drake himself. All in all, the film, released almost coinciding with his surprise 17-track mixtape, If You're Reading This It's Too Late, serves as a strong teaser for Drake's upcoming album, Views from the 6. Providing fans with a healthy dose of Drizzy after an extended absence from the game. It's a completely heartfelt and contemplative 15 minutes, however, as a whole the piece just seems to fall short of something great.

 

--Nick Woodcock is an aspiring Food Network host studying Communications at Concordia, follow him on Twitter.