UPDATE: Kanye West has removed the video (described below) from his website; clips posted elsewhere on the internet are gradually being purged as well. In a blog post on Monday, West (or his webmaster) simply wrote, "WE WERE ONCE A FAIRYTALE - SORRY I HAD TO TAKE IT DOWN :(". He gave no reason for the deletion.

Director Spike Jonze dominated big screens last weekend with his well-received adaptation of the children's story >Where the Wild Things Are. Turns out he also made a splash on much tinier screens, with the online release of We Were Once A Fairytale, an odd and enigmatic video clip created in collaboration with troubled entertainer Kanye West.

It's hard to know exactly what to make of this short movie. According to the folks at New York Magazine, We Were Once a Fairytale was originally supposed to debut on iTunes Sept. 8. Considering the fact that West became a popcult persona non grata right around that time, thanks to his antics at the MTV VMAs, the delay was probably a good move. Quite frankly, I can't imagine any viewer paying for the privilege of downloading this weird filmic exercise.

The clip opens with an inebriated-seeming West stumbling through a club, putting the moves on honeys and generally acting like a fool while his tune See You In My Nightmares pulsates through the speakers. Rejected and dejected, the addled rapper wanders into an isolated area to sulk, his sad thoughts echoed in the sad song (by nouveau old-school soul singer Mayer Hawthorne) that plays in the background. West briefly finds comfort in the leopard-printed bosom of a cooing young woman, then wanders off again, sad and lonely. From there, things take a strange turn -- West upchucks a kaleidoscopic symphony of confetti and rose petals in the club's plush bathroom, has a Hamlet-style existential crisis, and faces off with a tiny felt puppet that looks like Yoda's baby nephew.

If nothing else, I'm pleased that the Jonze-West experiment includes two of my favourite things: tiny objects and puppets. Any other thoughts?

--Sarah Liss