“Why You?” is the second part of “Film for Songs: The Great Book of Nature”, an animated short film by Michele Ducci and Letizia Mandolesi. The film, which contains two new songs, “Why Do I Wake Up Every Morning?” and “Why You?”, tells the story of an animated book called “The Great Book of Nature”, which itself purports to tell the story of a printed book by the same name.

“Why You?” is a jaunty fairground waltz with a big uplifting chorus, which appears to run counter to the on-screen events, evoking the Brechtian concept of the disengagement effect, in which the audience is encouraged to engage with the story intellectually rather than emotionally. 

Set in a police state where music is banned and real thought is suppressed by the introduction of a dumbed down language (‘Bla Bla Bla’), the film introduces a man named Elpino, who buys an animated AI book called “The Great Book of Nature” and embarks on a Kafkaesque train journey, where an alien creature, Marsia Joy, who represents music, is pursued by a policeman for merely existing. Marsia can cry a flood of tears to put out fires caused by the oppressors and enclose violent pursuers in cocoons, turning them into butterflies.

Rather than talking about other things, the book talks about itself. Says Ducci, “The thing that interests me about AI is that at the bottom of what should preserve remembrances, and memories seems to be a memory without remembrance and remembrance without the memory that precedes each remembered memory.”

The “blink and you will miss it” ending provides a final bizarre twist to the tale.

Michele Ducci will perform live at ‘Nursery of Freedom’, an all-day event of live music, art, film and tattoos at New River Studios in London on Sunday 27th July.