The strangest part of “Skywalkers: A Love Story” on Netflix is that it is more love story than a how-to on 21st-century Internet attention-getting. It’s both, really, but love story trumps likes and NFTs.
Ivan
and Nikola are two people in search of likes in the cyber universe. To do that,
they climb to the tops of the world’s tallest buildings, perform for the camera
and drones, and post it all online. “Rooftopping,” it’s usually called. But now
“Skywalking” is in the film co-directed by
Jeff Zimbalist and Maria Boukhonina.
Skywalkers Ivan Beerkus and Angela Nikolau make money through NFTs (but don’t
ask me how). It’s illegal what they do, trespassing at least and could be a
danger to their own lives and those of rescuers and pedestrians below. My
thought was this: don’t these two have anything better to do? I mean, what good
do they do for humanity? If I sound like an old geezer that’s because I am. These
rooftoppers were damaged during childhood, neglected and maybe worse. But come
on – stunting on top of tall buildings is the best you can do?
My
attitude horrified my family. “It’s a love story – pay attention!” That was my
daughter. “It’s incredible what they do,” asserted my son who used to free-climb
the ancient granite rock formations of Vedauwoo in Wyoming. “My God,” my wife
said something like this: “You sacrificed your Favorite Son pedigree to be the
writer you dreamed of being.” She was the most upset and it chastened me
because I truly was not thinking clearly.
It
was a love story. It began as a spree but then the duo became concerned for the
other’s welfare. Ivan didn’t want Nikola to fall from a great height and die.
Nikola seemed shocked by this and after a lot of turmoil including a break-up, she reconsidered,
discovered she didn’t want him to fall from a great height and die.
Many
of their skywalker friends had already died. Death became real and it was no
longer a lark. It was deadly serious. That’s what makes their conquest of the
world’s tallest building in Dubai so glorious. They did it, discovered each
other along the way.
Roll
the credits. There they are performing in the Dubai sky and a batch of songs roll
with the credits. One song catches my attention. It sounds like a hymn and I
don’t get it because The Good Lord is named in the lyrics and and I hadn’t seen
any gimme that old-time religion in this documentary. The music was beautiful. I
scanned the credits for the music and discovered “Stand on The Word” by The
Joubert Singers. I went to YouTube and listened many times.
It’s
a rousing hymn, as gospel as can be. Looking for the lyrics, I came across a
link to “David Byrne’s Desert Discs,” a list of songs from his BBC Radio
Program he would take to a desert island if he ever got the “Cast Away”
treatment and didn’t have Wilson to talk to. “Stand on The Word” by The Joubert
Singers (studio recording) was on the list with “I Wanna Be Your Dog” by The
Stooges and “The Revolution Will Not be Televised” by Gil-Scott Heron. That’s
some list, Mr. Byrne.
The
“Skywalkers” will be televised. And now it’s all over but the critiquing. They
are all over the Internet. Some have the same issues with it that I do. From Wikipedia:
"Nell Minow, writing for RogerEbert.com, rated the film 2 out of 4 stars, describing the
protagonists as "two careless adrenaline junkies taking ridiculous risks
to get likes on social media" and criticizing them for being 'completely self-centered.' "
Co-director
Zimbalist said this:
“There’s a danger to romance,” Zimbalist told Netflix’s Queue. “It crushes us. It breaks our hearts. It breaks
our hopes. Here, that danger is material. If the love falls apart, if the trust
falls apart, it’s life or death. That felt like such a potent way of taking
this amorphous sense that we all have in our romance and externalizing it and
making it tangible.”
I get it. Well, I got it, with help from my family.
But back to “Stand On The Word” and God’s role in the soundtrack.
Curiosity took me to Google and it sent me to the Red Bull Music
Academy. Musicians probably know this source but dorky 75-year-old bloggers do
not.
Aaron Gonsher wrote on RBMA on May 20, 2016: “The Tangled History of the
Joubert Singers’ “Stand On The Word.” He tracks its known history:
"In 1982, Phyliss McKoy
Joubert was working as the Minister of Music at the First Baptist Church in
Crown Heights, New York, when she gathered a group of musicians to record the
gospel album 'Somebody Prayed For This.' 'Stand On
The Word,' the album’s opener and the first song Joubert had ever written, was
performed by a group of sweet-voiced children that she christened the Celestial
Choir, and it stood out as a tinny yet remarkably addictive assertion of God’s
omnipotence."
Decades of mixes and
remixes followed. One was allegedly done by the legendary DJ Larry Levan of the
Paradise Garage in NYC. He featured it as a late-night disco tune.
That’s how he works
That’s how
The good Lord, he works
Gonsher sums up the song’sorigins this way:
“Stand On The Word” remains a worship song regardless of whose fingerprints are smudged on a remix….The chorus rising in one voice, splitting into call-and-response, and its exhilarating piano lines can’t be seen as anything but gospel music….It doesn’t matter who received the revelation first – only that it was eventually transmitted. And if so, that’s all there is to it: That’s how the good lord works.
Yep. As the song says. As the singer sings. Skywalkin’ all the way.
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