Mubi Monday: Queer (2024)

I have some big problems with Queer, and writing this review may help me to figure out if the problems stem from myself or from director Luca Guadagnino and writer Justin Kuritzkes. Actually, it may be the fault of William S. Burroughs, who seems to have filtered elements of his life through his books in ways that become repetitive and self-cannibalising.

Daniel Craig plays William Lee, a slightly older American man who now lives in Mexico City and spends a lot of his time trawling bars for younger men he might enjoy some nights of sexual activity with. I have deliberately used the word "trawling" there because Lee is a man very much casting a wide net in order to catch the occasional prize specimen. He believes that he has found a winner in Eugene Allerton (Drew Starkey), the two of them ending up in a relationship that allows them to explore their bodies, take some drugs together that may help them explore their own minds and souls, and generally develop different kinds of dependence.

Hot and sweaty, and often soaked in booze, this is the kind of film that emanates a heat you can feel coming off the screen. Whether sitting in the humid bars or being naked and hungry in bed, the main characters always seem to be coated in a sheen of perspiration. This is what the film does well, conveying that sense of heat (both external and internal), and the feeling of someone moving through it with only occasional moments of real connection that distract them from their own repeating cycle of numbing alcohol and sometimes-equally-numbing sex.

Craig and Starkey are both very good in their roles, with the former managing to deliver an accent that he keeps just far enough away from his iconic cadence he has made part of his character in the Knives Out movies. The supporting cast doesn't have too many familiar faces scattered throughout, but there's room for Jason Schwartzman, Henrique Zaga, and Lesley Manville, as well as some fine work from those who are less recognisable.

I don't think the problem here lies with me, although that's not something I get to say too often. I think the main issue with the film is that everyone seems to be repeating themselves. Guadagnino has covered very similar territory in a number of his previous features, and Burroughs, well, his exploration of himself is less interesting, cinematically, than, for example, Charles Bukowski's exploration of others who end up sharing barstools alongside him, or Hubert Selby Jr.'s exploration of those chasing a high to block out the trashheap around them. And you can get a much more interesting journey through his hazy and fractured mind by choosing to watch/rewatch Naked Lunch, which I highly recommend.

There's some good atmosphere and some good performances, and I am sure that some will appreciate the themes of sexuality and looking for companionship, but there's just not enough here to recommend it ahead of many other films based on the works of those namechecked here, or even ahead of most other films from Guadagnino.

5/10.

If you have enjoyed this, or any other, review on the blog then do consider the following ways to show your appreciation. A subscription/follow costs nothing, and ALL of the links you need are here - https://linktr.ee/raidersofthepodcast
Or you may have a couple of quid to throw at me, in Ko-fi form - https://ko-fi.com/kevinmatthews
Or Amazon is nice at this time of year - https://www.amazon.co.uk/hz/wishlist/ls/Y1ZUCB13HLJD?ref_=wl_share

Mubi Monday: Naked Lunch (1991)

When I first saw Naked Lunch I had no idea of exactly WHAT I had just watched. It was a film full of startling imagery, a wonderful lead performance from Peter Weller, and some impressively organic special effects that often looked like genitalia. I was probably in my early twenties when I saw the film, which explains why I came away so confused.

Now, at the grand old age of *cough, cough*, I can safely say that a rewatch of the film has led me to now have a clear opinion of it. And that clear opinion is that I still have no idea of what exactly I just watched. It remains a bizarre and bewildering experience, but I now know that it is all planned out that way.

The plot concerns William Lee (Weller), an exterminator who also likes to get high on his own supply of bug powder. As does his wife (Judy Davis). Mr Lee is also a writer, although his main typewriter of choice appears to him as a insect-like creature that starts to talk to him. I could say more but you would just think I hallucinated the whole thing.

That is the big plus of Naked Lunch, yet it's also the big minus. Writer-director David Cronenberg, adapting an "unfilmable" novel by William S. Burroughs, has decided to take the bones of a standard narrative and loop it numerous times through a drug-coated mesh, pulling everything tight at either end and leaving the middle section bulging and mis-shapen. He makes a number of bold choices, but they all pay off when it comes to delivering a movie experience like few others I can think of.

As well as the druggy haze, Naked Lunch deals in the kind of paranoia, conspiracy, and twists and turns that will be familiar to Cronenberg fans who have enjoyed Videodrome (made years before this one) and eXistenZ (which came along some time after). And there are so many films from him that feature characters losing their sense of identity that you could say it is one of his main preoccupations.

Weller gives arguably his best performance here, despite the fact that he has a couple of other roles in his filmography that fans will often put ahead of this one, and he's ably supported by Davis, Ian Holm, Roy Scheider, and Julian Sands, among others. Everyone involved gives a performance that feels a little bit off. Whether it's their sense of humour, their acceptance of odd events, or something else, they feel just like characters being viewed through the eyes of a drug addict who cannot trust his own senses.

Don't ever ask me to tell you what is going on in every scene and how it all connects. I am not about to rewatch the film with the intention of taking down notes and creating venn diagrams. And I am not offering my opinion of the movie as any kind of testimony to my own insight. I just know that I love the experience of it, even during the more gross sequences, and that it is another Cronenberg work that feels like it couldn't have been made by anyone else.

8/10

There's a disc you can buy here.
Americans can get a nicer disc here.