Communication breaks down in KLY’s Patience

9 avr 2018 - 16:51

Communication is as important as water. People panic more when they’re without their cellphones for a day than without water for a week. Ask Capetonians and they’ll tell you the same. People often fear the rise of a technological singularity – the day when machines become smarter than humans – but cellphones already control everybody to the point that people can avoid contact with others, as KLY’s ‘Patience’ video suggests.

KLY taking a walk through Johannesburg CBD with his girlfriend and her cellphone in 'Patience'.

‘Patience’ is a downward spiral of four precious minutes that you’ll never get back. The video shows a young Sandton couple leaving their upscale apartment to take a walk in the Johannesburg CBD at night. That’s okay because couples regularly take strolls in crime-ridden areas where nyaope heads flash you with knives and guns for another hit.

The subject of the video, although unintended, is a young lady who spends the whole time on her cellphone, disinterested in her lover and the world around her. Whatever she’s feeling, her detachment to the real world is amplified by her attachment to the device. She’s an addict who’d rather experience life through a screen than tackle it head-on. That’s at least what the video evokes in the viewer. But the intention is different: KLY’s efforts to have her fall back in love with him are falling on deaf ears. So the director of the video wanted to show one thing but inadvertently probed a completely different problem rampant with today’s youth. And that problem is much bigger than a failed romance that happens to everyone numerous times in their lives. Don’t worry KLY, there are other fish in the sea.

The female lead only begins paying attention to her surroundings when they walk into a Bollywood film store. There are two possibilities here. One, Bollywood movies are the key to winning your lover’s attention. Two, her battery is dead. It’s also possible that her understanding of love is based on Bollywood love affairs – she’s infatuated with love in song and dances around water features. It’s like thinking you have a grasp of the complexities of war by playing first-person shooters in your living room.

The video has plenty of other completely unnecessary moments. Four minutes soon begin to feel like four hours, especially when KLY stops to greet his buddies on the street and watches a random street performance. Here ‘patience’ is not clicking through to the next YouTube video, whatever that might be.

What is meant to be the climax, where the couple is confronted by a man with a gun and a stereotypical hoodie, falls flat on its backside because the video doesn’t have a clear storyline from the get-go. KLY heroically stands between his cellphone-toting girlfriend and the robber who pulls out a gun. He blows a kiss and the video ends without a conclusion. But we get it. He’s ready to die for someone who has stronger feelings for a selfies than a human being.

‘Patience’ is surprising in that it doesn’t share the same storytelling qualities as other videos produced by Ambitiouz Entertainment. Sjava’s ‘Impilo’ and Saudi’s ‘Make You Proud’ follow clear narratives and have relatable characters in them. There are no real emotional triggers in ‘Patience’ and it should be used as an example of how not to write one-dimensional parts for complex human dynamics.