A tin-heart-patch is a type of crush that is rendered vividly Luca Gudagninoof Call me by your nameAnd then Guadagnino’s new film depicts a kind of destructive sexual and romantic obsession. weirdWhich premiered here at the Venice Film Festival on Tuesday. William S. Adapted from Burroughs’ novel, weird There is a strange and depressing look to a man who is turning away from desire. It’s about other things too—subtle and obvious premonitions of alien life, the quest for sublime experience—but everything seems bent on one man’s fixation on another, a half-satiated appetite.
Daniel Craig Barughsian plays Fleur Lee, who lives in Mexico City in the early 1950s. He spends his time carousing in a handful of bars, chatting up fellow Americans or hanging out for sex. He resents its side effects, yet isn’t shy about it. Lee is also, we later learn, in the grip of a heroin addiction, with which he resigns. Craig is capable of such ease when playing James Bond or Benoît Blanc, allowing himself to sweat, disheveled, face tragedy and walk around in dirty linen suits.
Lee is in stark contrast to the new arrival on the scene, Jean (notably Drew Starkey), who are young and beautiful and nicely put together. He immediately catches the eye of the men in this small neighborhood orbit, but especially Lee. How could he not be attracted to a creature like this: cream and grits? Fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine glass fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine fine powder fine powder. His self-possession is painfully interesting in the way he shifts between hot and cold in Lee’s presence.
Their dynamics are precisely felt in the film, familiar to anyone who has paradoxically sought both affection and rejection from someone whose whims and fascinations are transparent. Lee and Jean interact on several occasions, but Lee always frames it as a favor that Jean has done for her, or Jean as part of a mutually beneficial exchange in which genuine caring has no place. And yet Lee continues to reach out to Jean anyway; It is part of the destruction he sees as inevitable to his condition.
which can make weird A punishment, sounds like a silly play. But that’s not the kind of film Guadagnino makes. instead, weird It is offbeat, abstract, irregular in mood and tempo – perfect for an adaptation of Burroughs’ work. It can be a mean and off-putting film, although some of our atrocities are born out of the horror of self-identity. To liven up the mood, Guadagnino stages some sex scenes that—when taken out of context, perhaps—definitely qualify as hot. He uses anachronistic songs – there are two Nirvana covers, for example – to score scenes, with Trent Reznor And Atticus Rossof pulsing, mechanical root structures. The film is a riot of style and technique, following Lee Jin and becoming more realistic after a belief that will never come.
Lee brings Jean to explore South America, where Lee plans to find a plant that, he claims, the locals believe can aid in human telepathy. It’s called yaj, more commonly known these days as ayahuasca, and Lee hopes it will open some portals to understanding the world, about himself, about genes. From one perspective, weird It can be rated as a movie about a man who travels deep into the jungle to find out if the guy he likes is really gay or not.
It is, of course, much more than that, clearly and implicitly. Guadagnino is perhaps most focused on nailing Burroughs’ moods and cadences, an enigma of frenzy and magical thinking coexisting. I think it gets there, though viewers more familiar with Burroughs should be the ultimate judges of that. Fans of Beat-era gay literature, all its grit and dreaminess and self-loathing, will get the most out of the movie. Those averse to that particular tone will have a hard time. weird Guadagnino is at his most opaque and alienated; even Sighs More are invited.
And yet there are captivating sequences and flourishes, erotic or tragic or both. The way the music and the moment collide and complement each other is fascinating. Guadagnino used Rome’s Cinecitta studio to create a gorgeous diorama-box Mexico City, all the shabby hotels and glowing bars at night. As the movie veers further into the grotesque, Guadagnino removes the film from time and space. The climactic ayahuasca scene is a sort of modern dance piece, with two fire-lit men mingling and parting.
There is something immensely sad and vaguely relatable at the heart of the film, which I wish Gaudagnino had teased out a bit more. But that may not be true of Burroughs’ intentions, nor I suppose of Guadagnino’s. weird Means to be prickly, withholding, enigmatic. To get anything more out of it can only repeat Lee’s mistake, grasping at something that can never be ours.
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