Director Spike Jonze knows Where the Wild Things Are but those monsters are tame compared to what's eating Kanye West in their short film We Were Once a Fairytale. Not that the mini-movie is a work of art but it's an extraordinarily candid fantasy suggesting West is dealing with heavy stuff after hijacking Taylor Swift's big moment at the VMAs, becoming the most despised celebrity in the world (until the next jerk comes along).

You can read a lot into West's video confessional: He's shown in a nightclub acting like a fool, under the influence of something(s), drawing attention to his song being spun by a d.j., hitting on women without a shred of dignity or suaveness and staggering into an alleyway. A woman joins him and they begin having sex until he passes out, waking up alone on a sofa. West staggers back to the club and into a restroom where he vomits then collapses on the floor.

That's when things get weird. West finds a hunting knife on the floor, stands up, looks in the mirror and does a hari-kiri slash across his abdomen, literally spilling his guts. Out of the gash emerges a cat-like creature -- perhaps representing West's pent-up dysfunction. What happens next seems like a message that West is facing up to his inner demon, determined to make it die.

One warning: We Were Once a Fairytale contains profanity, substance abuse, brief simulated sex and cartoonish viscera. It also feels like West -- with the help of Jonze, who directed a couple of his music videos -- is exorcising a lot of pain. We don't have to feel sorry for him but this video quasi-confessional evidences a troubled soul deserving a chance at redemption.