This music video was edited from the short film "Looking for a New Place to Begin" using the main track "Chains" by Barbara Ohana to display a sort of like trailer for the project conceived by a fashion brand that wanted to deal with the LGBTQI+ experience.
The great and beautifully talented Johnny Massaro plays an eccentric singer who performs the title song in a nightclub. Paralel to his performance on stage, he has moments of intimacy with a male mannequim of which he takes it to bed and has some special moments with it.
The short film reveals a lot more about this strange encounter while the clip makes it more poetical in making us figure out why the mannequim is so important to the man to a point that sadness and happiness shift really quick and the mannequim is destroyed while the man cries. I'd like to think the man has this fantasy of wanting to be near with someone he dated and loved but it's no longer present and the plastic mannequim satisfies him in such a way at the same time he cries in bed because of the haunting memories that won't go away because the doll is not a replacement for the human figure, and he's just trying to find ways to forget him and move on with his life.
Just a thought, since the film completes more the journey of transformation of a gay man who lives a double life (on stage he's one thing and at home he's another thing) and he tries to reconcile with himself on new terms, so in order to create he has to destroy a part of himself. And while here Ohana's song is the central theme of the project, in the short (longer obviously) there are more themes from her that expand the idea. All brilliantly played.
Thumbs way to such a delicate and lovely story of good times, bad times and the evolution one has to make in order to find a new place to begin a new life. Massaro rocks with grace and style while dubbing the songs, full of makeup, bleached hair and some feminine traits, almost like a night diva. It's a great companion piece to promote "Looking for a New Place to Begin", goes pretty much as a trailer and "Chains" is a powerful melodical song. 9/10.
