Passionate Ambivalence

Once in a while, a case of speculative excitement crawls over my skin, such as when one hears of the Golden Suicides' aperitif that Bret Easton Ellis is currently conjuring. The same sensation occurred when I read that David Cronenberg, directorial craftsman behind recent classics, A History of Violence and Eastern Promises, had adapted the William Burroughs novel, Naked Lunch, to film in 1991. A member of New York's niche literati, William Lee, played by Peter Weller (a skeletal Christian Bale) takes us through a faux-autobiographical series of recollective vignettes, tracking down scenarios and hallucinations that pierce the fragile sensibilities of his junk-induced state of quasi-comatose indifference. There is no plot, per se, and characterisation is as elusive as the ambiguities of the language. Now that I've read the book and seen the film I still have no idea what's going on. Indeed, it is not Cronenberg's best, which is especially frustrating considering it formed around the time of his horror masterpiece, The Fly, and his sci-fi classic, Scanners. Admittedly, however, there is real potency behind the imagery of the novel, to which both Bret Easton Ellis and Irvine Welsh owe an extreme debt. If you thought Trainspotting was gritty, this is something else. Cronenberg's skill, however, should never be overlooked. He manages to blend curiosity with disgust, horror with humour, and the absurd with the prophetic. It's interesting, at least, that Cronenberg wrote his screenplay long after the universal war on drugs was realised as an all-but defunct social policy (an advantage that Burroughs was not afforded). Rapidly, we follow Lee down the rabbit hole in search of bigger and better neurotic highs, he's a writer experimenting with artistic impetuous. His unconscious efforts compel him to inject cockroach-killing powder, the black meat of giant Brazilian aquatic centipedes, and, later, the jism of the sordid Mugwump. I know, I'm as lost as you are, but there is a social message in there somewhere, trust me. Feel free to try and find it, but if you're the slightest bit predisposed against insects, do not watch this film.