I’m an Electric Lampshade (2021) Film Review
If Doug McCorkle’s story is actually a true story, and I’m not saying it isn’t, you won’t believe it’s 100% true at first. You will have to see and digest Doug’s realization with a more reflexive perspective. It’s only when you overcome the initial feeling of wonder and “prudent envy”, and start admiring him for what he was able to do, that you can understand the power of his drive. If films can have the power to modify how you want to see yourself in the future, this is one of them.
Contrary to what you may be thinking, I’m an Electric Lampshade goes beyond a regular journey of self discovery. Sure, it begins on the verge of McCorkle’s “rebirth” through the consequences of his retirement. And just when you think the film is going towards the expected direction, it makes a violent turn. You won’t believe where it goes.
John Clayton Doyle writes and directs this docu-fiction approach and achieves a triumph in every sense of the word. It’s not that he paints Doug’s path and forces the audience to accompany the man in the materialization of a dream. The director rewrites the standard this film could have followed to make us accept Doug and his will. Instead he takes a dreamlike approach and goes over the edge with an overall risky film.
A few minutes in, I’m an Electric Lampshade turns literally into Doug’s separation from the society that always told him how he was supposed to live. He enters a school in the Philippines which specializes in performance arts. Doug becomes a peer among drag queens that are trapped in a third-world dam that stinks of repression.
However, Doyle doesn’t stick to telling a tale in documentary style. He takes us into a fiction plane intermixed with an exploration of culture that’s fascinating. Still so, Doug’s journey is filtered through a confusing flood of artistic rendering.
When I’m an Electric Lampshade stays an honest documentary about passion and the rawness of instinct, it’s actually a very good film. When it transports Doug’s progression into a territory of absolute artistic freedom it loses the connection that we can achieve naturally by understanding the human drive for expression. I’m an Electric Lampshade feels like a long music video with embedded “behind the scenes” content. Is it inconsistent? A little. Does it matter at the end? Not at all.
Try to open your mind. Sometimes films require you to do so as they go off the rails with originality set loose in a blank canvas. Documentaries don’t usually go off the beaten path, and this may be the most effective opportunity for that. This is the story of a man who one day decided to revolutionize himself and the rules of a society that has an issue with the bizarre. Being creative isn’t proportional to being old and I’m an Electric Lampshade yells this through a proud and stylish channel. In the words of a man who’s an artistic genius in a unique realm: “Age is not the limitation you think it is”.
Sometimes you just have to dare, and Doug McCorkle goes beyond what you can imagine.
