David Cronenberg Marathon: Naked Lunch (1991)

I honestly can say that this film is incredibly difficult to understand. I don't think I get it, but that isn't the point of this movie. It's almost a more powerful film when you don't understand what's going on, especially when considering that the film is about drug abuse. The movie is about the author William Burroughs and the basic plot is that an bug exterminator/writer murders his wife and goes to a place called the Interzone where he is instructed by talking bugs that operate as his typewriter that he is an agent trying to capture a doctor working for Interzone Incorporated. Its an incredibly bizarre movie if you couldn't tell by my synopsis above, which makes it an incredibly boring and hard to follow film. I didn't really like it very much because of this, and I usually understand these types of movies. I will try my best to judge this film as a reviewer without insulting my own intelligence.

The movie contains some amazing creature designs, especially with the talking bugs and alien-like things. They all look disgusting and a lot of bizarre stuff happens concerning them. The main character types on a typewriter that is part of a large bug and later in the film types within an alien's mouth. It sounds incredibly weird, and trust my that it is, yet it looks really cool and gross in that awesome Cronenberg style. There is also a sex scene in the movie that makes no sense at all, which involves one of these typewriter monsters, and ends with the typewriter jumping out of a window. I doubt I could name another film that the MPAA says contains 'Bizarre Eroticism' and I don't think that I would want to.

The setting of the movie is very well shot in a film noir type of camerawork and lighting. It looks very good and strengthened the strangeness of the film by making the events that occur much more bizarre. It may appear that I am using the words 'strange' and 'bizarre' a lot, but that is exactly what this movie was. It was incredibly hard to follow and unlike anything else I've ever seen. I am not sure that I could sit through the entirety of the film again, as it doesn't really go anywhere and the movie's boring.

I don't know if this film has some deeper symbolism to it or if I need to know more about Burroughs, but as a viewer I shouldn't need to know every detail about the actual life of the writer the film is about. I turn towards movies in the hope that they can teach me these things in less that two hours, which is why I'm disappointed that Naked Lunch left me feeling bored and uninterested. From the film I can decipher that the writer's life was full of CIA conspiracy and drug abuse, yet the film leaves the viewer with far too many questions left unanswered and unaddressed. Did the events in the film actually happen to the main character? It's so confusing and difficult to piece together what was real and what was fiction, which I suppose could have been the message behind the film. Too bad that everything was so goddamn hard to figure out.

Rating: 5/10