Naked Lunch (1991)

Amazing when you watch two movies one shortly after the other, and although they really have nothing similar about them, they have an odd link that bridges the gap, maybe just for you.

That’s what happened with me in the case of {moscontentlink:The Texas Chainsaw Massacre%} and Naked Lunch. In the former, the 1960es came to life. Astrology, psychedely, mushrooms, drugs, love (not much rock’n’roll, though) all conspired into forcing the protagonists into fright. But thirty years later, the recurring admonitions from parents and adults not to use drugs just don’t come as frequent, and the movie feels lame because you just can’t feel why everyone is so afraid.

Naked Lunch is from a time when drugs and homosexuality where experimental, and it lives mostly in the shadowy dark region in which this experimental nature is exciting.
I got the same feeling when my father used to drag us into the latest Pasolini, as children. Once you removed homosexuality from the aura of mysterious and fascinating, the whole movie collapsed under its own (considerable) weight.

Ok, that’s an overstatement in this case. Naked Lunch the movie is not far enough from us to really be concerned about things that don’t concern us any more, but at the same time, the fascination with homosexuality and drug abuse really can’t carry the same weight it must have had when William S. Burrough wrote about it.

Did I like it? Sure, David Cronenberg did a great job on the visuals, and the actors all play very well. Whenever I got bored with the twists of the story, I would just concentrate on the scenes and the costumes, and the set decor, and that could carry me into the next scene no problem.

But would I watch the movie for a second time?