In a Nutshell. Mini reviews of movies old and new. No fuss. No spoilers. And often no sleep.

Wednesday 17 June 2015

NAKED LUNCH [1991]

Director David Cronenberg gets really feckin' weird with Naked Lunch, a hallucinatory erotic comedy(?) inspired by the life & works of post-modern author William S. Burroughs.
Peter Weller is perfect as a man trying to get his life together, only everything that surrounds him will have none of it thus sending him drifting in and out of a drug-induced Kafka-esque miasma that is simultaneously hilarious, wondrous, terrifying and most of all: really really creepy.  Fans expecting an adaptation of the novel, the film takes it's name from, obviously never read the book, as Cronenberg takes from all sorts of sources and creates something all his own.  The wild imagination is what stands out but after the shock of that wears off, you've got a hypnotizing story that dissects the social mechanisms that follow Weller's character into his hallucinated version of Tangier.  It's definitely not for everybody but for those that bite, they will find something fantastic.

4 drips of mugwamp jism out of 5

2 comments:

Dr Faustus said...

I saw the film a few times before reading the book. Taking that route was just as weird.

4 friendly chats at the bar out of 5

cuckoo said...

I keep coming back to this one and forgetting how much I thoroughly enjoy.

I think it might actually be one of those films I never seem to realize that it is in fact a higher ranking favorite.