Review of Naked Lunch (1991) by Brent G — 04 Dec 2009

I haven't read Burroughs' novel, but my roommate swears by it. What Cronenberg did with this film was not film the novel (as that would be impossible), but incorporated themes from the novel into a representation of its own creation.

I thought that was really creative. The movie is washed in this yellow-green filter, which makes the whole thing feel as slimy as the centipedes and other insects featured in it. The movie starts with the Burroughs quote: "Exterminate all rational thought.

" This movie does a pretty good job of that, as it gets more and more delusional, paranoid, confusing, eccentric, and giant bug rape , if that's even an adjective. To my knowledge, the idea of Naked Lunch in general is to not look for narrative or story and to just go along for the ride and give in to the insanity.

I can't help but say Cronenberg succeeds in doing this with the film. Just in a different way. I love the idea of the bug-asshole typewriter to represent this guy's manic bug-spray problem. This movie is a total trip, to my knowledge succeeds in doing a good job with the source material, and I would watch it again just to get involved in the craziness all over again.