6A — Tuesday, January 17, 2017
Arts
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

In 2009, The xx emerged into 

the world with the minimalist 
dream that was their self-titled 
debut; xx was an album stripped 
down to its bare bones, the 
startling intensity of Oliver Sim’s 
and Romy Madley Croft’s voices 
cracking every song open to its 
core.

This 
bleached 

vulnerability 
helped 
contribute 

to 
the 
album’s 

attention-grabbing 
novelty 
but 
also 

reduced it to a bleak 
puzzle 
of 
black 

and white pieces. 
xx seemed to exist 
infinitely in hushed, 
empty 
spaces 
— 

void of vitality and shrouded in 
shadows.

In contrast, The xx’s newest 

release, I See You, bursts with 
color.

I See You takes the basic ideas 

introduced in xx and builds off of 
them, initiating complexity and 
depth; this album still holds on 
to The xx’s original, uncluttered 
sound, but adds more to its 
straightforward simplicity, mainly 
through lively and unpredictable 
background melodies. It is these 
melodies which illustrate the 
influence of In Colour, band 
member Jamie xx’s debut solo 
album. The release of In Colour in 
2015 seemed to bolster Jamie xx’s 
confidence in the creation of I See 

You, allowing for the formation 
of songs that stray from The xx’s 
standard sound.

Instead of songs composed of 

only Sim’s and Croft’s voices with 
few other distractions, I See You 
pushes the background music 
into the spotlight. In “Lips,” the 
driving force behind the song 
comes not through the vocals but 
rather through the accompanying 
rhythms; 
the 
gradual 
build 

of clapping beats and subtle 

instrumentals 
perfectly matches 
the 
celestial 

repetition of “Just 
your love / Just 
your 
shadow” 

and 
grows 
like 

ivy up the side of 
Croft’s airy vocals, 
culminating 
in a song that 
sparks with raw 
sensuality.

Alongside 
the 
background 

music, Sim’s and Croft’s voices 
have also evolved. Turning every 
song into a conversation, they 
build off each other organically, 
intertwining 
into 
beautiful 

harmonies 
then 
unraveling 

only to come back together 
again 
moments 
later. 
They 

approach every note with an 
easy familiarity. In “Dangerous,” 
Sim introduces us to pointedly 
buoyant 
background 
rhythms 

with “They say we’re in danger 
/ But I disagree.” A few seconds 
later, Croft adds her voice to his, 
a light layer that rounds out the 
sharper edges of Sim’s sound. 
There is a dynamism that exists 
in “Dangerous,” introduced by 

the symphonic back-and-forth 
between Sim’s vocals and Croft’s 
vocals, allowing the song to evenly 
shift from one note to the next.

The same concept can be seen 

in “I Dare You.” Even though 
this song is mellower than 
“Dangerous,” 
Sim 
and 
Croft 

work together in the same way: 
Effortlessly melding their voices 
together for the chorus, then just 
as effortlessly breaking them 
apart. This complete control and 
maturity Sim and Croft have 
over their respective vocals allow 
“I Dare You,” as well as every 
other song on the album, to feel 
perfectly balanced despite their 
ever-changing elements.

None of the songs on I See You 

are static. Instead, like waves, the 
songs are constantly ascending 
and receding, moving and shifting 
off of one another; the varying 
components of differing vocals 
and commanding background 
melodies combining to form 
songs that are sprawling in their 
animation.

This album is more than just 

a definite collection of songs; the 
beauty of I See You comes in its 
growth. Both in The xx’s growth 
as a band from their first album 
to this one and also the growth 
that can be seen within I See You 
itself, in the way every note builds 
off its predecessor. This album’s 
strength doesn’t come from its 
individual songs, but rather the 
way the songs are woven together 
to produce a complete entity, at 
times achingly simple and at other 
times vastly complex, but always 
constant in the way every moment 
is charged with energy. 

YOUNG TURKS

Her jawline could do more.

SHIMA SADAGHIYANI

Daily Arts Writer

The Women’s March 

The 
Women’s 
March 
on 

Washington next Saturday began 
as a few different Facebook events 
which eventually merged once 
people around the country started 
to realize that they weren’t the 
only ones having the same idea. 
Now, there are organized buses 
and confirmed permits and around 
200,000 people could be attending.

Even though I can’t go, it’s hard 

not to feel overwhelmed even just 
sitting at my desk, scrolling past 
story after story about the people 
and 
organizations 

playing large roles in 
the development of 
what will be one of 
the biggest protests 
in the nation’s history. 
And while I do at 
times get emotional 
thinking 
about 
it 

(especially when I’m 
listening to Hamilton, 
but I digress) I have 
noticed a trend in the 
coverage of the march 
that is concerning me.

The role that the 

media played in this 
election was larger by far than in 
any other election in recent history, 
which is interesting enough in 
itself, but it’s also a reason to pay 
incredibly close attention to the 
coverage of what has happened 
since November 8th and what will 
happen after the inauguration. And 
I’ve seen a split in the coverage of 
the women’s march. Half of what 
I read is about how the people 
and groups organizing the march 
are putting their intersectional 
approach to the march’s aims front 
and center, pushing to make this 
march as inclusive as possible. The 
other half of what I see details how 
there are tensions as some people — 
particularly White men and women 
— at times feel almost disinvited to 
the march, some even deciding not 
to go.

Some are saying that now is not 

the time to focus on our differences 
but on our similarities, on what we 
all hope to accomplish together. 
I disagree. Now is not the time 

to gloss over how progressive 
movements 
for 
change 
have 

historically been non-inclusive of 
people of different races, genders, 
religions, sexual orientations or 
socio-economic status. 

Feminism has historically been 

a 
White 
woman’s 
movement. 

Everyone has heard some variation 
of this statement before, and while 
it’s true in some ways, it’s also 
simplistic. The movement itself may 
have catered to more privileged 
groups in the past, but so did the 

press. The coverage of 
a social movement is 
essential in how people 
view 
its 
progress, 

especially those that are 
watching, for whatever 
reasons, curiously from 
the sidelines.

I’m not saying that the 

coverage of the Women’s 
March on Washington 
— the title of which 
echoes the March on 
Washington in 1963 — 
should be only focusing 
on the amazing fact that 
this march is happening 

and not on the fact that, like any 
movement, it’s going to have its 
imperfections. But a piece of pop 
art I saw on the Internet — a meme, 
if you will — a few days ago made 
me realize why the coverage of the 
tensions among those who want to 
participate in the march bothered 
me. It was a cartoon picture of two 
women, one grasping the other by 
the shoulders; her text bubble read 
“I just want to hear those three 
little words…” The text bubble 
from the other woman answered: 
“Agitate 
Educate 
Organize.” 

That phrase comes from another 
progressive movement (though my 
Internet searches revealed different 
interpretations of the origins), but it 
made me realize what my problem 
with the press in the terms of the 
Women’s March on Washington is.

The women of the Women’s 

March 
on 
Washington 
are 

agitating and organizing. They’re 
also 
educating 
and 
have 
an 

immense power to spread the 

ideas behind the abstract concept 
of intersectionality far and wide. 
And while there’s coverage of the 
agitation and organization — and 
the strengths and weaknesses in 
those two areas — there is little 
discussion of the educational power 
that this march has, across divides 
of age, regionality and partisanship, 
to name a few.

The 
Women’s 
March 
on 

Washington holds much more 
significance 
than 
solely 
anti-

Trump 
sentiment, 
and 
that’s 

something we have to focus on. 
This 
demonstration, 
and 
the 

coverage of it, has the power to 
catapult messages that people have 
been voicing for years: Experiences 
of race and gender are inextricable 
from each other, the urgency of the 
relationship between affordable 
health care and immigrant rights, 
the fact that environmental issues 
often 
disproportionately 
affect 

women and children — that 
“Women’s 
Rights 
are 
Human 

Rights,” to quote Hillary Clinton. 
That, more than anything else, is 
what sends shivers down my spine 
when I think of 200,000 people 
marching on January 21st.

Incidentally, this march is not 

about Clinton losing to President-
elect Donald Trump. But despite 
the fact that Hillary Clinton was 
not the candidate many — if not 
most — Democrats were hoping 
for, it was still a disappointment 
on a very fundamental level that 
November 8th, 2016, couldn’t 
be marked and celebrated as 
a 
monumental 
milestone 
for 

women’s equality. Little girls 
who play with President Barbie 
will still have to draw on their 
imagination 
to 
name 
her, 

because they won’t have a real-
life example to use. As silly and 
gendered as that sounds, it’s still 
disappointing. But as women 
are marching, girls are watching. 
And thinking about how kids 
now will grow up learning about 
how this march was self-aware 
of its inclusivity, and pushing to 
overcome the lack thereof, gives 
me hope. 

SOPHIA 

KAUFMAN
Daily Gender & 
Media Columnist

The xx

I See You

Young Turks

GENDER AND MEDIA COLUMN

ALBUM REVIEW

The passion of ‘Silence’ 

FILM REVIEW

Few movies bleed passion. 

With many disinterested movies 
funded with the hopes of a sizable 
return on investment, it’s always 
so refreshing to watch one where 
it’s clear that everyone was fully 
committed and believed in the 
project. “Silence” is a rare feat, 
a movie whose passion is visible 
from start to finish.

Director 
Martin 
Scorsese 

(“The Wolf of Wall Street”) 
retells Sh saku Endō’s novel of the 
same name following 25 years of 
production, a “passion project.” 
After 
several 
disputes 
with 

production companies, including 
struggles to sign actors like Daniel 
Day-Lewis (“Lincoln”), Scorsese 
finally delivers one of the most 
challenging and rewarding movies 
of his 21st century catalogue.

“Silence” tells the story of 

Jesuit priests Sebastião Rodrigues 
(Andrew 
Garfield, 
“Hacksaw 

Ridge”) and Francisco Garupe 
(Adam Driver, “Star Wars: The 
Force Awakens”) in their quest to 
Japan to search for their mentor, 
Cristóvão Ferreira, who is said 
to 
have 
committed 
apostasy. 

Upon arriving in Japan, the 
priests and their new Catholic 
followers face opposition from the 
Samurai. Rodrigues is eventually 
imprisoned, along with many of 
his Catholic disciples.

Ideas of faith and sacrifice are 

the focal point of “Silence,” and 
answers do not come easily for 

Rodrigues. In all regards, the 
Catholics’s loyalty to their religion 
is tested under the most brutal of 
conditions. “Silence” reasons to 
make meaning of religious sacrifice 
when meaning is indiscernible. 
It’s a testament to those lost and 
finding their way through religion 
against all opposing forces.

For those expecting crusade-

like battle scenes and Samurai 
fights, 
anticipate 

disappointment. 
“Silence” is a slow-
burner, 
a 
movie 

that pays off with 
great 
royalties 

to 
those 
patient 

enough to endure 
its 
considerable 

length. 
Those 

rewards, 
ultimately, fuel the 
movie for its entire 
duration. Although lagging at 
some points, the movie is just 
short of feeling bloated. The 
same story couldn’t be told in 90 
minutes.

From breathtaking shots of 

lush Taiwan — where the movie 
was shot — to Japanese towns, 
“Silence” is visually stunning. 
Still, it’s not overly dependent on 
the gorgeous scenery and sets. 
The film plays off the wonders 
of the region while not getting 
distracted by their beauty. It 
adds to the movie, but never gets 
carried away by the rocky shores 
or expansive hills.

Cinematographer 
Rodrigo 

Prieto’s 
(“Passengers”) 
shots 

are haunting. Without being 
intensely gory or too brutal, 

certain images of “Silence” are 
tragic and encapsulating; each 
shot feels like a thousand lines of 
dialogue.

The film does not rely on 

melodrama to communicate its 
meaning. Garfield’s performance 
locks in key emotions without 
ever breaking the limit of what 
feels overdone. It’s unusual in 
that every expression and line 

shows the most 
extreme 
forms 

of conflict and 
human suffering. 
However, 
it 

is 
Driver’s 

performance 
that 
should 

surely 
solidify 

him as one of his 
generation’s best 
actors. After roles 
varying 
from 

“Star Wars: The Force Awakens” 
to “Paterson,” Driver once again 
proves his versatility. Unlike 
“Girls,” the underwhelming TV 
show that propelled Driver into 
stardom, he’s only getting better 
with each release.

“The Wolf of Wall Street” was 

the first introduction for many 
teenagers and college students 
to Martin Scorsese; the movie is 
his highest grossing of all time. 
“Silence” is about as different as 
possible. Whereas “The Wolf of 
Wall Street” was about hedonism 
and wealth, “Silence” is ascetic 
and impoverished. It rejects the 
maximalism of “Wolf” in favor 
of minimalism. The two can’t be 
compared. Though, if necessary, 
“Silence” wins. 

WILL STEWART

Daily Arts Writer

‘I See You’ returns and 
captivates with colour

A-

“Silence”

Paramount Pictures

Rave Cinemas, 

Quality 16