Best Oscar Song Ever: Review: Nina Simone "Who knows where the time goes"

My Nina Simone song review can be found on treblezine.com

"Who Knows Where The Time Goes?"
By Nina Simone
From The Dancer Upstairs (2002)

I remember watching The Dancer Upstairs while I lived alone in New Orleans, the summer of 2002, and while I enjoyed the film, it's the song after the opening credits that will continue to live on in my memories. The opening scene is set in a pick up truck with three people driving through the mountains with darkness surrounding them. In the car, the only light is coming from the car stereo, which is playing Nina Simone. The first thing you hear before any dialogue is uttered in the film is a lengthy monologue by Simone. After Nina finishes her speech and one of the men in the car turns to the other one and asks, "Why does she talk so much?" The quiet man looks at him and replies—"she's getting ready to sing." It's hard not to relate to that one line of dialogue, the introduction by Nina and the song itself. Watching the movie again, it reflects where I am in my own life and how I connect with the characters in the film. In the movie, the characters are ready to sing, they are ready to tell their own story and that's how I feel.

Starting a movie off with a song like "Who Knows Where the Time Goes" is a thing of brilliance and a perfect example of blending music and film. It can be heard with sad ears but to me it's a song of reflection. It's a song about the choices we have made and where time has shown us the glories we have seen and the mistakes we have overcome. All of this is brought to life by Nina's haunting yet beautiful vocal. The themes of The Dancer Upstairs reflect on how the essence of time affects the choices that the characters make in the film. Time is a character, time is alive and time is something that is uncontrollable. At the end when the main character played by Javier Bardem makes a choice, it is time that will haunt him till the very end. After watching how the characters deal with the choices they made in the film helped me realize that it's what we do with our chances and choices in our own lives that make us who we are— and that time a reflection and a guide in our life. –

Adrian Ernesto Cepeda
2007