{"id":4598,"date":"2014-07-01T22:47:42","date_gmt":"2014-07-01T21:47:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.electricsheepmagazine.co.uk\/reviews\/?p=4598"},"modified":"2014-07-10T05:40:05","modified_gmt":"2014-07-10T04:40:05","slug":"the-man-whose-mind-exploded","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.electricsheepmagazine.co.uk\/reviews\/2014\/07\/01\/the-man-whose-mind-exploded\/","title":{"rendered":"The Man Whose Mind Exploded"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"The<\/a>
The Man Whose Mind Exploded<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\n

\nFormat:<\/B> Cinema

\nRelease date:<\/B> 1 July 2014 (UK), 13 June 2014 (London & Brighton)

\nDistributor:<\/B> Picturehouse Entertainment

\nDirector:<\/B> Toby Amies

\nUK 2012

\n77 mins\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

For many years 70-something-year-old Drako Oho Zahar Zahar was a prominent figure in the British gay underground. In his time as a dancer he had posed for Salvador Dal\u00ed, worked with Andy Warhol, and can be seen, leather-clad, giant black dildo in hand, writhing around in the foreground of Derek Jarman\u2019s The Garden<\/i>.<\/p>\n

But that was then and this is now. Today Drako suffers from anterograde amnesia: he is a man with no past, just a permanent, rolling present that forces him to take everyone, and everything, at face value, including filmmaker Toby Amies. When Amies first visits Drako to discuss making a film about him, Drako remembers nothing about their arrangement, but agrees to do it anyway, abiding by the code he has lived by, and has tattooed onto his arm, ever since losing his memory: \u2018Trust, Absolute, Unconditional\u2019. The moving and inspiring film that emerges from several years of regular visits to Drako\u2019s cramped Brighton council flat, festooned from wall to wall with gay pornography and scribbled notes-to-self, is a deeply human portrait of a developing friendship, and of a difficult life lived to its fullest.<\/p>\n

Rather than document Drako\u2019s colourful existence before the accident that robbed him of his memory, Amies makes the bold decision to focus on Drako now, choosing to take his subject for what he is, rather than for what he used to be. As their bond strengthens, and Amies shifts in Drako\u2019s consciousness from another unknown to a \u2018cher ami\u2019, so Amies\u2019s role changes, from documenter to carer, and the genuine warmth between Drako, on screen, and Amies off it, is enough to heat even the largest gentlemen\u2019s sauna.<\/p>\n

This in itself should counter any accusations \u2013 and they have been raised \u2013 that the film exploits Drako\u2019s mental health problems: indeed Amies confronts his subject with that very question. \u2018I like to be used,\u2019 moans Drako, staring into the camera, tugging at his stretched, pierced nipples through specially prepared holes in a chunky knit sweater. Just who, we are forced to ask, is using who here?<\/p>\n

With all the current talk of \u2018British Values\u2019, it strikes this reviewer that every voting age adult in this country should be encouraged, or, if they protest, forced to see The Man Whose Mind Exploded<\/i>. Here they will learn about the once deep-seated British Values of not just tolerance, but of celebration<\/i> of difference and eccentricity that must be retained, and will surely be lost, in a world without Drakos.<\/p>\n

Mark Pilkington<\/I><\/B><\/p>\n

Watch the trailer:<\/B><\/p>\n