Review of Naked Lunch (1991) by Bojana B — 18 Jan 2008

Throughout the whole first 15 minutes I thought of leaving the theater in disgust... then the fascination overtook. then the question whether I was watching a completely homophobic flick(the parrot cage scene).

so I got out puzzled and disturbed. then remembering Burrough's story, I chose to believe that, on the opposite, the movie proposes indeed a character that loathes himself so much that he needs to double-kill his heterosexual side and keeps dulling himself up with drugs and hallucinations rather than accept his true self.

yet he's caught back by terrifying homosexual hints (the anus under the bugs wings, the mogwumps phallic head-trunks, the story of the hemoroids and the rape of kiki). the drug tripping manages to be constantly somewhere between sensual and horrific, like this incredible scene with the arabic typewriter.

luckily for the aesthetics, no computer animation, and because of international threats, the shoot in morocco was cancelled and re-set in studio instead. so the recreated maghreb has an artificial quality that confers it an even stronger claustrophobic and paranoiac feel.

the james horner music is as jazzily messy as william lee's inner world, and illustrates it brilliantly. the whole cast shines, but i'll insist on judy davis cause she is just perfect as joan: haunting, strong, weak, fierce, sensual, and though not a classical beauty, totally erotic (in a very helen mirren type of way).