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Writer & Director – Ti West

2022, US

Stars – Mia Goth, Jenna Ortega, Brittany Snow

 

The opening fly-buzz acknowledges ‘The Texas Chainsaw Massacre’: 1979, somewhere in Grindhouse Hicksville, Texas, where a group of people hire a property next to a creepy house owned by creepy old folk to make an arty(?) porn movie. There are no true story surprises, but Ti West is one of the best at capturing not only period look, but the feel of the films being pastiched. Being true to the spirit of its chosen era, it even stops to let Brittany Snow pick up an acoustic guitar for a song.

 

So what it lacks in originality, it makes up for with details like the opening ratio gag, some vivid editing and shooting and crowd-pleasing gore and violence. The first killing unsettles in its length, and other killings are perhaps less impressive and a killing to "Don't Fear the Reaper" is groan worthy, but by that time, a lot of goodwill has been built up by the slow burn, period homage and mood.  It’s true value is in the strength of its characterisation, which is what Ti West is reliable for. Here’s a small band of porn-makers which, typically, would have been annoying sleazeballs, except for the more innocent/reticent wallflower girl. But here the producer guy Wayne (Martin Henderson) is not just a lecherous manipulative hustler, and Bobby-Lynne (Brittany Snow) isn’t just an annoying sex-crazed vamp, and Lorraine (Jenna Ortega) isn’t simply a disapproving thrill-killer in over her head. And there’s a hint of Nice Guy about RJ (Owen Campbell; obviously one to watch with ‘My Heart Can’t Beat Unless You Tell It Too’). There’s complexity to their relationships. It’s layered characterisation, without trying to make them conflicted or apologetic, is quietly subversive. West isn’t sleazy, and although he obviously enjoys exploitation, the quality of the filmmaking – the initial sequence introducing the alligator has been rightly celebrated – and writing rises above just that. But that isn’t to say he scrimps on the nastiness and bloodletting: the first kill is particularly gnarly.

 

But it’s with Mia Goth and her remarkable freckles where the true meat of it emerges. Especially when you discover she plays both Maxine and Pearl. I did not know this going in or realised during. But once I knew this, it only reenforced the themes already obvious, about fear of loss of desirability; about a sex drive outlasting the body. This is a film where getting old makes you murderous when desire and body are no longer in accord. Here comes a bitter old couple, torn between an evangelical television and a group of adults in their prime gleefully making a sex movie. But with the same actor playing both Maxine and Pearl, the picture deepens further: in retrospect, Maxine seems quietly more the disturbed one, snorting drugs and conflating a big sex drive with ambition and fame; Pearl becomes the natural twisted outcome of Maxine’s getting old and not having this satisfied. It's as if this group has been caught in her porny fever dream where, as is the way with slashers, sexual dysfunction emerges as homicidal cum-shots. And without fiercely trumpeting as such, this is a woman’s film (see how the men die first?).

 

This is the truly intriguing stuff, but the film is otherwise simply good slasher fun with superior writing and execution. All this means that already pending prequel, ‘Pearl’, already feels like more than just a cash-in. Although it doesn’t truly transcend its basic genre pleasures, and may be seen as an underachiever for that, it’s certainly exploitation for those that like their horror with reflective pretentions. And did I mention fun?

"Years in Quicksand" - Buck Theorem mini-album

'Years in Quicksand' is the new mini-album I have released. It has the usual electrocrooning, a little soul rending, instrumental diversions, and some moog folk.

YEARS IN QUICKSAND

BUCK THEOREM

 

Panic on the Sofa

Daydream, and I’ll come to you

Chorus for Clones

Do Not Sail

Sword of the Nun

Through the Trees (reprise)

The Greatest Hits of The Big Dream

 

The furniture burn of insecurities, an invitationto escapism, a clone’s bid for independence, a landlocked lover’s cry for renuinion, a crazed love left landlocked on the shore, a virgin blade of vengeance, a return to an alien abduction, a rumination on lost ambitions.

 

“Years in Quicksand” made & played by Buck Theorem in 2021-22, during and after some lockdown or other. Except “Sword of the Nun”: developed from a 4track recording made sometime in the early 2000s.

linktree

Olga

Olga

Director – Elie Grappe

Writers – Raphaëlle Desplechin, Elie Grappe

2021, France-Switzerland-Ukraine

Stars – Anastasiia Budiashkina, Sabrina Rubtsova, Caterina Barloggio

 

From the Glasgow Film Festival.

Fifteen-year-old Olga has promising potential as a star athlete, so when she is exiled to Switzerland because of the volatile political situation in Ukraine – the Euromaidan revolt is brewing – she trains there for the National Sports Centre.

A girl dislocated from homelife and homeland, torn between identities, languages and loyalties, Olga is prime material for coming-of-age drama. Anastasiia Budiashkina’s performance is both solid, a little defiant and battle-worn, vulnerabilities mostly buried behind a stolid veneer. Her teenage conflicts and empathy play out in the focus on being an athlete with her peers whilst the conflicts with Ukraine and her mother are mostly news reports and fuzzy screens. There is plenty to be moved by, but the political and personal sides never quite reconcile, which is perhaps apt for this character.

Arguably, the feats of athleticism are a little compromised by being shot a little too close up and broken up with multiple edits (like most action sequences, mid-shot longer-takes seem best to me for really showing what the artist is doing). But this is a coming-of-drama that runs on understatement and low-wattage and is all more affecting and sharper for that.

La Civil

La Civil

Director – Teodora Mihai

Writers – Habacuc Antonio De Rosario, Teodora Mihai

2021 – Belgium-Romania-Mexico

Stars – Arcelia Ramírez, Álvaro Guerrero, Jorge A. Jimenez

 

From the Glasgow Film Festival.

When her daughter is kidnapped by a local gang, Cielo (Arcelia Ramírez) can’t let it lie although everyone takes is as just everyday life in Mexico.

With her daughter opening the film with a joke about Adam and Eve and Mexico being Paradise, the films lays out the religious nature of a culture who are in no illusion that they are living in a Hell, preyed on by cartels. Of course, such a narrow view of Mexico might be problematic as playing on stereotypical conceptions of the country for outsiders, but in the Q&A, Mihai makes it clear that it is based on a real person and stories. The emphasis is unwaveringly on Cielo, her increasing activism and unlikely emergence as amateur detective.

The camerawork is often the smash-and-grab of documentary film, which is Mihai’s background, but even then the focus is always on Cielo. The camera is never leaving this crusading mother’s side, even she joins an army attack on a cartel horror site. The violence is mostly heard as she wanders through the bloodstained rooms looking for her daughter. It is never quite “thrilling” or “exciting” in a superficial way, and in that way circumnavigates exploitation.

One poster has the tagline “Never underestimate a mother’s wrath”, with a gangster pointing a rifle for the kill against the backdrop of an explosion, but this is deceptive packaging as a revenge thriller. It’s feels more like “despair” than “wrath”, even when anger takes her over. Consistently melancholy and contemplative, the tone is not quite as all-out brutal as the unrelenting ‘Helo’, but the bleakness moves into a more conventional ‘Sicario’ rhythms as Cielo joins the military to witness and eventually participate in their questionable tactics. In this way, it follows more conventional thriller beats, but Ramírez’s performance as an unglamourous, average mother keeps things grounded, convincing and gripping throughout its runtime.

Zalava

Zalava

Director – Arsalan Amiri

Writers – Arsalan Amiri, Tahmineh Bahramalian, Ida Panahandeh

2021 – Iran

Stars – Navid Pourfaraj, Pouria Rahimi Sam

 

From the Glasgow Film Festival.

 If I was watching this at FrightFest or Grimmfest, I would have been more sure of where this was going. However, this Iranian drama dresses up in a horror clothing to speak of the dangers of superstitious and blind belief, and one can extrapolate to religious faith, in a way that feels bold in is lack of ambiguity. It's not shy about it's targets

1978: Massound is a gendarmerie sergeant sent to a village in Kurdistan to investigate complaints of being under siege by demonic possessions. But Massoud does not believe in such things, which puts him at odds with the townsfolk, especially when an exorcist gets involved. Soon, the general hysteria infuses every shadow, breeze, creak and empty pickle jar with supernatural potential, not tot mention the cute black cat cameo. The pickle jar is the central macguffin. And the audience will play into that too because, as this a film, anything is possible. The atmosphere is thick with portent and the location is fascinating, and we will not get so deep into the characters, although we don’t necessarily need to. The abstract nature of a person is part of the point.

Ryan Lattanzio calls it “slight”, perhaps with expectations of a more conventional horror. It felt to me more akin to the work of Aharon Keshales and Navot Papushado (see 'Big Bad Wolves'). When a film is the dangers of mob delusion, about the battle between the irrational and rational, I wouldn’t call it slight. Being about man’s hysteria and inclination for lynching, it’s more of a genuine horror than just the spookily inclined drama than I perhaps assumed.

 

Her Way - Une Femme du Monde

 HER WAY

UNE FEMME DU MONDE

Director – Cécile Ducrocq

Writers – Stéphane Demoustier(collaboration), Cécile Ducrocq(screenplay)

Stars – Laure Calamy, Nissim Renard, Béatrice Facquer

 At the Glasgow Film Festival.

A character piece about Marie (Laure Calamy) putting everything into her effort to get her somewhat lost and apathic teenaged son Adrien (Nissim Renard) into a prestige culinary school. It’s the only thing that really seems to focus him, that brings out his talent. The thing is, she’s a sex worker.

It’s a woman’s film which neither presents choosing to be a proud prostitute as liberating or as wrong. It’s more a portrayal of the trials of work life and what you will do for your kids. Marie is laser focused on lifting Adrien from his awkwardness and self-loathing, but sometimes she resorts to shouting and badgering him too much. Perhaps if she stops on this quest, she will have to clearly face her own shortcomings, which she is not about to do just yet. The fiery pride that emboldens her to protest for her profession also frequently puts her at odds with her son. In fact, her maternal determination which is so admirable also makes her increasingly dangerous to others. 

This mother-son stuff is great, rightly the heart of the film and will hit many chords. Laure Calamy and Nissim Renard put in riveting, believable performances, and that’s where the story’s strength lies. The scene where Adrien is sat down to do a dummy interview with his mother’s transvestite lawyer friend is a highlight, loading with swinging sympathies and perspectives, uncomfortable to watch, and ultimately touching. And this scene shows the film is not frightened of showing casual prejudices: there is also the detail of Marie’s racism mixed with her resentment of competition. These are fully-rounded, complex characters that are venerable and sympathetic but not always likeable and frequently frustrating.

Often amusing, always engaging and flighty, you’re likely to be fully onboard in her plight and his fear of failure that you won’t care if the film starts to reveal more stereotypical beats by the end. But the message that, no matter how much you want to help, the individual still has to find their own way and that determination may not be enough is quietly stated and welcome.

Bird Atlas

Bird Atlas

Director – Olmo Omerzu

Writers – Olmo Omerzu, Petr Pýcha

Stars – Miroslav Donutil, Alena Mihulová, Martin Pechlát

2021 - Czech Republic, Slovenia, Slovakia

 At the Glasgow Film Festival.

A droll family drama focused on a ruthless, selfish patriarch of a technology company. He is an irredeemable aging bully and, when taken seriously ill, one son seems to be making his move, the other is a quiet enabler, and the daughter is preoccupied with a new baby. The trouble starts when company millions go missing. Yes yes, a ‘Succession’ scenario, but less gaudy and acerbic and the characters aren’t wholly obnoxious. In fact, there’s a straightforward approach to mundane glass and vanilla set design that is akin to the drabness of soap operas. But there is a bright trip to a snowbound apartment, and one fantastic shot of a blue train going through a snow-white mountain route.

There’s weight when the unappealing Ivo – a stony Miroslav Donutil – momentarily turns into an unlikely anti-hero detective to pursue the mystery and money. Just when it verges on being too dry for its own good, to almost tedium tedium, there’s a touch of the fantastical when birds, via subtitles, start to give philosophical and business observations. And it’s a tale where no one gets what they want and one man’s loveless attitude leaves a trail of unhappiness. A moderate drama that occasionally hits real heights but might be an underachiever. But the Greek Chorus of birds is inspired.

Hellbender

HELLBENDER

Directors - John Adams, Zelda Adams, Toby Poser

2021, USA

Writers – John Adams, Zelda Adams, Toby Poser

 

In the tradition of the best indie horror, this doesn't let a lack of budget compromise imagination and devotion to its ideas. Even its title has broader meaning, not just a superficial hokey-horror signpost: it refers to not only a breed of witches but also the rebel-rock duo the central mother and daughter form to pass-time and as a creative outlet. And the songs and music are highlights, adding fundamentally to the attitude and atmosphere, from defiant rock to deflated indie (drum, bass, sweet/shouty female vocals).

 

Made by the filmmaking gang The Adams Family and friends – if they aren’t in front of the camera, they’re behind it – this exudes the kind of understanding of its limitations and love of genre that prioritises themes, decent performances and a confidence in implication that make indie low-budget so rife with imagination. And which only makes the moments when it goes-for-broke and shocks with effects and offbeat detail all-the-more surprising. It’s already strong material before the delightful surprise appearance of a key.

 

It’s the same story as ‘The Curse of Audrey Earnshaw/BloodHarvest’, but with a modern folk horror take. It’s more ‘In the Earth’ than ‘The Witch’. A mother and daughter live isolated in the woods, contentedly, but the mother is off secretly making spells from nature and the daughter is starting to feel teenage restlessness.

 

Coming-of-age drama and horror are the soulmates, and ‘Hellbender’ benefits from real-life mum and daughter dynamics (Toby Poser and Zelda Adams). Despite the deep kinship they have, as symbolised at first by the band, this is a tale of how the younger generation will always usurp their elders, of how the secrets of a parent ferments rebellion. The resounding horror of ‘Hellbender’ is not just the killings but of the death of a close mother-daughter relationship.

 

For every dozen low-budget clown-faced killer indie, there is one like ‘Hellbender’ that that bristles with ideas and themes, that doesn’t condescend and utilises the genre to go to corners that the mainstream can’t get to.  It keeps a swift runtime and an even pace, padded out with diversions into heavy metal visions and more pensive bildungsroman reveries with indie music videos inclinations.  When it does do special effects, Adams knows to keep the edits curt so that their constraints don’t dwell.

 

Full of surprising detail and solid themes, but never trying to overreach, lots of mood and pretty woodland setting, a great soundtrack, ‘Hellbender’ is an entertaining and fascinating indie horror.

The Medium

Director – Banjong Pisanthanakun

2021, Thailand – South Korea

Writers – Chantavit Dhanasevi (story by), Na Hong-jin (original story by), Banjong Pisanthanakun

Stars – Narilya Gulmongkolpech, Sawanee Utoomma, Sirani Yankittikan

Takes the aesthetic of an unconvincing pseudo-documentary focusing on the eponymous medium, Nim (Sawanee Utoomma) who claims she is the vessel of a female spirit. But this is really about Mink (Narilya Gulmongkolpech), her niece who becomes possessed.

It is clear within the first half hour what this will be, so perhaps you’ll be wondering (a) will there be a twist? and (b) this is over two hours long, so surely it won’t go on like this? But there won’t be, and it does. It lasts long enough for unintentional humour to seep in. Mink is soon doing her best Sadako impression as things go a little ‘Paranormal Activity’ with night vision etc. In the tradition of mockumentaries, it is otherwise handheld camera and talking heads with the occasional intertitle saying the crew have decided to believe all this, for example. Wait, how many cameramen are there? How many angles? Did her workplace just allow a film crew to stand around filming and to film in the toilets? But there is satisfaction in the crew actually stepping in once or twice, becoming increasingly visible and targeted (although we don’t care because they are unknowns). But mostly they just film hysteria and assaults with no one confronting them. When Mink turns on them, it’s a pleasure to see her retaliating against her disintegration and issues being filmed all the time. Ostensibly, it seems to have started out as an investigation of Nim the Medium – and it makes for a traditional horror title – but this is soon abandoned to focus on Mink.

 As far as the possession goes, this is initially dealt with by being draped in string with a finger in a glass of water. For bonus entertainment, as many comments suggest, you can play at taking a drink every time characters say “Mink!”, but you’re likely to be drunk before the pyrotechnics of the last act of the ceremony.  

The ceremony finale involves lots of string, incense, a bull’s severed head (this film won’t win over any dog lovers either), yelling and the obligatory chanting, and bashing some homemade arts-and-crafts. It’s here where things get lively after ninety minutes of Mink acting out. "Mink! Mink? Mink! MINK?!" Of course, at the heart of this, as with so many possession narratives, is a young person being rebellious, going against the strictures of culture. And if the somewhat excessive and somewhat spurious nature of the rituals are anything to go by, there is a lot of rules and strictures to kick back against. Mink becomes antisocial, confrontational, promiscuous, secretive, giving everyone hooded looks or/and creepy grins. Gulmongkolpech is certainly game and having fun and less comical when acting “Evil” than many. This stuff can often drift into amateur dramatics if the context doesn’t support, and ‘The Medium’ does that too, but this is a case where the central actor jerking and leering possession is probably better than the surrounding film. Despite the novelty of the local colour, some flashes of genuine nastiness, and the convincing naturalism of the performers, it is the same old thing.

Yet beneath it all is a more interesting, barely explored tale of this families’ relationship to an ancestral Goddess and how it has affected the filial bond – one sister rejecting the spirit and the other accepting seemingly as a way of obtaining meaning and status. And when at the end it is revealed that Nim isn’t even sure she’s a conduit, in a coda that is meant to make you reassess what’s gone before, it’s obvious that a more fleshed-out domestic tale about women, faith, legacy, this Isan culture, etc., would have provided more weight and distinguishing features. 

All of Us are Dead

ALL OF US ARE DEAD

Directors - J.Q. Lee & Kim Nam-Soo

Screenwriter - Seong-il Cheon

series 1, 2022, South Korea

 

 

Another zombie splurge, I thought, which is just my thing so let’s see how long I last. There have been a few series where I have bailed out after a few episodes. I like to stick to things to the end – after all, ‘American Vandal’ only proved its depth given time, for example – but when you’re dealing with a series, there’s only so much time you have.

 

But the first scene in ‘All of us are Dead’ – the South Korean High School Zombie epic – had a long take that suddenly zipped away from the intimacy of bullying on the school rooftop and circled round before diving up close again. Then a Bible is brandished, which made me giggle at its feint at a possession possibility before it’s used to pummelling-by-silhouette.* Later, there was another long take where a teacher attacks and bites a student and then the camera stays on the student as he turns into a zombie (blood spurts from his cheek) and then he gets up to attack his peers. And then the camera pulls out of window, seemingly through the glass. Long takes and trick shots, as if Iñárritu was slumming it by directing a zombie show. But these moments are what I am a sucker for, and I realised that, no matter how standard the drama, I am going to be compelled to watch more to see what they do each episode.

 

And then episode two is off and running with a startlingly choreographed zombie assault on the canteen. A mixture of hand-held and drone camera. It is breathless stuff and feels a full meal and cinematic rather than TV. Of course, that’s not such a surprise in this Golden Era of Television where the lines are blurred – the ‘Daredevil’ series had a few long-take fight scenes, for example – but it doesn’t feel hampered by television dramatics like, say, ‘The Walking Dead’ and its imitators. That’s because the action is brilliantly choreographed and feels as orchestrated as those of, say, ‘The Raid’; let’s say it’s no accident that ‘Train to Busan’ is namechecked. Perhaps a suitable comparison is the organised crime series ‘Gangs of London’, with its thrillingly composed fight scenes.

 

With episode three of ‘All of us are Dead’, it’s time for things to slow down for some character development and conflict.  This also means that things suffer from the Stupidity Of Characters, which may leave you scowling (Really: it’s time for the love triangle right now? & Snap out of it! & Just put him in the other room! etc) Mostly, this involves Queen Bitch against the group and loss of friends, the former designed to get the blood boiling and the latter fair enough in a zombie scenario.

 

One of the dominant themes throughout is that of bullying. Certainly, films like ‘Last Child’, ‘Pluto’ and ‘King of Pigs’ present Korean schools as hellholes of bullying and abuse. Here, the feelings of persecution and fear a teen may feel about his/her peers are fully justified by the zombie epidemic. A disgraced scientist father reacts badly to his son’s bullying and when his lab mouse bites a student and unleashes the epidemic, his nihilism and disgust at humanities’ cruelty comes full force. And then, of course, there is the school trying to cover up that bullying and the abduction of a student by a teacher to save face. There’s also teen pregnancy and a group of politicians to take us outside while our main group of teens are trapped in one classroom.

 

Episode 4 continues this but also spends time with a subject which is often neglected and often challenges my suspension of belief with films and TV: they discuss the problem of toilets and how it will work for the group. This even deserves its own montage and wins points for addressing this often unaddressed reality (I am often left thinking “But what about going to the toilet?” in a film as much as “Yeah, they wouldn’t get up from that.”). Then the action picks up elsewhere with a run for the rooftop with the politician’s group whilst the chief concern admirably leaves our teens in one room working out what to do. There’s also a policeman running about the city and some arrow-shooting teens also scrambling about the campus.

 

And with episode 5, we’re back to less questionable character behaviour. There’s an excellent library confrontation, but the showy long takes have been abandoned. The pace is impressively swift again, with all the subplots getting their moments. Now it’s got rid of the Queen Bitch student, there’s no recourse to cheap confrontation to keep things going, which is refreshing. This main group of teens is just trying to work things out and they are a solid bunch of characters. I appreciate the emphasis being upon their bonding in a time of need rather than incessant bickering.

 

Episode 6 starts with a montage of all the subplots and promises a swift pace. But it’s mostly a filler, shoving along these subplots with further nuance. The zombies are evolving (“hambies”), our teens risk their lives from one room to another, our policemen almost but don’t get far. It ends with the teens making video blubs with the school camera, but that seems appropriate.

 

So by this stage in the series, it is obvious that the bravura flourishes of the first two episodes have given way to more standard aesthetic. It is twelve episodes long, and a lull in the midsection is perhaps expected. This is why ‘Squid Game’ being nine episodes long was an indication that it was wisely as long as it wanted and needed to be, with little padding. Even so, ‘All of Us are Dead’ had won enough good will with me initially and established enough subplots to keep things lively. The hallway fights and fleeing from one place to another are all thrilling, with the battle in the gym a late-stage highlight. Every time the teen troubles threaten to drag, one of the subplots kicks in to keep interest and throw in some action. At least until the end. And I like the more realistic dilemma of being trapped in one place for a while; that on more than one occasion characters make a dash for it but have to run back. So they don’t discuss toilet arrangements on the rooftop, but the show has at least nodded to those real problems.

 

What is also impressive is the sense of widespread desolation within a limited scope, especially in the penultimate episode. The undead bullies keep coming; the army wavers between uselessness and overreaction; a father braves the situation solo to save his daughter. You’ll probably be inclined to shout at the characters to do something/don’t do that/why’re you just standing there emoting?? as dramatics occasionally overtake the narrative.

 

So it doesn’t match the promise of its opening, but ‘All of Us are Dead’ remains entertaining throughout, and you might even find yourself caring about some of the kids. And the series doesn't skimp on casualties, and even musters up investment in many. Certainly, a cut above average even if doesn’t achieve distinction.

Don't Look Up

Director – Adam McKay

Writers – Adam McKay(screenplay by), David Sirota(story by)

2021 - USA

Stars – Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Lawrence, Meryl Streep

Current American MSM perniciousness and shallowness will be an extinction event.

Falls somewhere between Mike Judges’ ‘Idiocracy’ and McKay’s own ‘The Big Short’. Takes the guise of a hip screwball celebrity ensemble satire. A couple of university astronomers discover an asteroid aiming for Earth to wipe everything. However, American mainstream culture is ill-equipped to deal with this for its narcissism, short attention-span, greed, stupidity, political opportunism and vapidness. There’s enough here that upset the right Rightish people, but it is also preaching to the choir: its targets are so obvious that it’s never going to convert anyone. Mostly it’s just nodding along. And anyway, nothing will or can match the cartoonish mayhem and abhorrence of the source material. That is: it’s reflective rather than predictive. 

And mostly the human race goes to hell due to idiocy and self-interest, which means that the full reality and extent of behind-the-scenes nefariousness and manipulation is never addressed. There’s no Murdoch here, or a Roy family, which is surely a gaping lacuna, and an angle McKay is fully aware of having directed ‘Succession’.  

Of the cast, Mark Rylance strikes a chord the most with his almost android-like portrayal of a tech mogul that scuppers mankind’s last hope because he sees a money-making opportunity – probably thinking he’s too big to fail. The most surprising moment is when he’s called out by Dr Mindy (Di Caprio) and his demeanour turns on a dime into threatening without missing a beat. 

There are, of course, a few years’ worth of real world source material for ‘Don’t Look Up’ to draw from, from climate change denial to COVID response. Neil Morris summaries, “as the most risible responses to the virus outbreak become commonplace and normalized, sometimes it takes sardonic, albeit unnuanced allegory to snap us back to reality.” It’s not a reality snapping allegory but a distillation of the cultural problems that have made proper, clear responses to these apocalyptic threats possible. Chris Betram puts ‘Don’t Look Up’ as a ‘Dr Strangelove’ redux:

“Obviously satire, obviously really about our inability to act against climate change, but also about the comical inability of the United States to play the role it has arrogated to itself.” 

But it doesn’t feel quite as sharp beneath its broadness, never quite pulling out the insightful farce it wants to be. Yet it’s swipes about vacuous celebrity culture stymieing the media’s ability to discuss serious discussion hit home, as well as the fickleness and aggressive denialism of cultists and culture, etc. So it is far from subtle but, despite missing the mechanisations of deliberate aggressors, ‘Don’t Look Up’ gathers up enough principle ingredients and heavy-weight actors to be an interesting and entertaining commentary on the zeitgeist. 

Naked Lunch

 Naked Lunch

Director – David Cronenberg

1991 – Canda-UK-Japan 

Writers - William S. Burrough (novel) & David Cronenberg

Stars – Peter Weller, Judy Davis, Ian Holm

Cronenberg’s surreal comedy mash-up of William Burrough’s life and work, led by Peter Weller’s sublime deadpan Burroughs impression and bug-typewriters. If the plot and conspiracy are barely cohesive, that’s all part of the druggy paranoia that propels the plot into barely acknowledged trauma.

Although there are plenty of names, skits and autobiographical notes to please Burroughs’ fans, ‘Naked Lunch’ is very much Cronenbergian. It’s trashy and lucid, gross and intelligent in equal amounts in a way that Cronenberg has made his own. It starts with a Saul Bass-style opening credits with Howard Shore and Ornette Coleman's jazzy, retro score, at once ominous and dizzy with Coleman's solos. From the start, the tone is slick and edgy. The set design is colourful and resonant of an imaginary golden age of a decadent scene and cluttered writer's rooms.

But beneath the increasingly crazed WTF surface moments, and wayward plot concerning “double-agents” and sedition, there are numerous baubles concerning creativity and muses. Not least of all an early conversation about writing between Burroughs and characters representing Karouac and Ginsberg, which grips from the first. It’s a heady mixture in which cognitive dissonance and denial are pulled out as Burrough’s true muse, not just sex and drugs and an oppressively permissive North African town. It is repression of his homosexuality and guilt for the William Tell accident that killed his wife. When another character tells Bill “There are no accidents,” Cronenberg proves himself alert to Burrough’s philosophy. He is attuned to Burrough’s plunging into further absurdities, creativity, addiction, disgust and bugged out fetishes in his attempt to spiral away from he is and has done.

Cronenberg seems the right director for Burroughs when he presents the creativity tool of typewriters as sexually active provocateurs, filling the artist with conspiracies. Who would have thought antique typewriters could be so repulsive? And although it’s not subtle, there is something complete in the film’s use of metaphor, in the typewriter-bugs symbolising sexual self-loathing churning out intimate creations, or in the pieces of a broken typewriter becoming a junky’s kit. And then here are the unforgettable mugwumps – Chris Wallis’ creations are unsettling and clunky in the way only practical effects can achieve. 

But perhaps it is Cronenberg’s affinity for Burrough’s jet black humour that makes this more than an acolyte’s fawning. It isn’t that. Burroughs and Cronenberg are certainly suitable fits when it comes to expressing the trauma of the human condition with surrealism. Elsewhere, Tom Waits’ collaboration with Burroughs would bring out and prove, somewhat impressively, the latter’s oddball romanticism. And it’s the obvious playfulness and intelligence of the script that evidently enticed such a solid cast: Davis and Holm are deliciously straight; Julian Sands is delightfully camp; Scheider gleefully makes a crazed entrance to chomp scenery and cigar; Joseph Scoren is elegantly soft and charming; and here’s plenty of fine lines to go around. 

But if Cronenberg’s awareness of the absurdist humour means it never takes it totally seriously – it’s the comedy of the outrageous, which is in the blood of horror - by the end he finds the core of trauma that humanises such a notoriously chilly subject.

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