Last week, I posted a song from Australian artist DPR Ian in the Music thread:
Post in thread '🎶 :The Official TTF Music Thread! 🎶'
https://thetolkien.forum/threads/the-official-ttf-music-thread.28781/post-626747
-- and as I said there, he's as much filmmaker as singer-songwriter, so I'm going to post some of his work here.
First, a bit of background, which I'll try to keep as concise as I can. He was diagnosed with bipolar disorder in high school, and later with Dissociative Identity Disorder. The latter is controversial (it used to be called "Multiple Personality Disorder"), but evidence has been growing in recent years. Its origin seems to lie in early childhood trauma, causing a person's mind to break up into different "alters", with different functions.
Ian has been using his art to deal with and express his mental journey, at least since beginning his solo career about four years ago. A couple of earlier albums introduced one main alter he calls MITO -- an acronym of "Moodswings in This Order" (or sometimes "In Disorder"). This character functions to protect him from accessing the memories of whatever trauma he suffered as a child.
More recently, he's introduced another character he calls "Mr. Insanity" who comes out during his manic state, and it's a short sequence about him I'm going to post here. I won't say much about it -- partly because the complexities are beyond me, but I believe the first couple portray Mr. Insanity exerting his influence in an attempt to control Ian completely, in order to gain access to memories lying on "The Other Side". Ian has said in interviews he fears this could drive him to total madness.
It should be kept in mind these aren't merely "characters": they can and do "front" -- that is, take control, while "Ian" is blacked out. In fact, this happened while making a video -- he asked his camera operator if he was ready to start, and was told they'd already done three takes. That was MITO, and Ian had no memory of it, but used the footage in the final video.
I may post that one later, but for now, here's a sequence about Mr. Insanity from his latest album.
Note: these music videos contain images and themes some may find disturbing. BTW, English subtitles are available, for anyone wanting to examine the lyrics.
There follows a short connecting bridge:
I'm placing the final part under a spoiler, because the "full" Mr. Insanity's chaotic nature is on display, and the video contains a good deal of mayhem -- and a couple of mildly rude moments.
As with my "Love Wins All" post, I welcome comments or discussion.