(Disem)Body Talk: Guadagnino Pays Homage to the Paradoxical Beat Pariah
If Ayn Rand had dared to write a character who was a genius gay white male unable to reconcile his hedonistic tendencies and is thus thrown out of the heavenly refuge of Galt’s Gulch back to the hellishness of Earth, he might have resembled someone like Williams S. Burroughs. A non-conformist who set himself apart from the already non-conformist Beat generation he rose out of in the 1950s, Burroughs more readily identified as a heroin addict than a gay man, despite blatant suggestions to the contrary in his writings. Perhaps most famous for his 1959 novel Naked Lunch, and the subsequent obscenity trials it overcame in the ensuing decade (notably adapted into a pretty damn good film by David Cronenberg in 1992), he has long been a bruised icon for the social refugee. A later generation would resurrect Burroughs’ legacy, including Gus Van Sant, who utilized the writer for his 1989 film Drugstore Cowboy and Howard Brookner’s 1983 documentary, Burroughs: The Movie. He’s a figure who’s always held a contentious place within the queer literary canon not only due to his proclivities but also his insistence on not identifying as gay. But we must keep in mind the context of the identity politics which Burroughs survived.
While Steve Buscemi spent more than a decade trying to adapt his 1986 publication Queer, it’s fitting that Luca Guadagnino inherited the opportunity. Written in the early fifties, and meant to be the sober continuation to his first novel, Junkie, the frank homosexual subject matter and title meant it could not be published for another three decades (though Larry Kramer would utilize a much touchier expletive for an infamous novel in 1978). At last, cinema may have finally caught up to the power of the written word. In the words of Burroughs, “Language is a virus from another space.”
In 1950s Mexico, heroin addicted American expat William Lee (Daniel Craig) goes on a nightly hunt for companionship amongst the community of other young gay American men enjoying the scene. Accidentally, he stumbles upon Eugene Allerton (Drew Starkey) and becomes smitten. After they become acquainted, they embark on a sexual affair, which tends to go hot and cold in rapid, alcohol induced waves, especially seeing as Allerton doesn’t necessarily identify as gay. But Lee makes him an offer to travel to South America as a sexual companion on a quest to discover a psychedelic drug called ‘yage’ he’s been reading about, which supposedly is being utilized for telepathic experiments by the American and Russian governments. Allerton eventually relents, though neither of them quite expect what happens as they stumble upon Dr. Cotter (Lesley Manville), a woman who’s been conducting research deep in the jungle.
Guadagnino takes some big risks, perfectly complicating an already troublesome protagonist. In many ways, he’s taking the liberty of crafting the visualizations of the (sometimes) incomprehensible ramblings Burroughs wrote. Today, Queer would be categorized as autofiction, grafting bits of an author’s own experience into the fantasies and hallucinations which make him an unreliable narrator whether he means to or not. The production design of the Mexican sequences feel as if they’re recuperating the period it’s actually set in, perhaps what film would have felt like had gay characters been able to live out loud on the same sound stages as their heterosexual counterparts.
As the Burroughs persona, William Lee, Daniel Craig is quite exceptionally melancholic as he is dapper, an aging gay man who’s been relegated to the role of the (increasingly inept) hunter. Craig has played gay characters before, notably in 1998’s Love is the Devil: Study for a Portrait of Francis Bacon and 2006’s Infamous (where he played real life murderder Perry Smith). But Guadagnino ups the ante, establishing a raw intimacy and obsession with Queer in a handful of sex scenes which reveal a sometimes sad, sometimes joyous game of shifting power plays.
The milieu of gay American expats in 1950s Mexico gives us a handful of supporting characters who make these days of wine and roses an appealing trap. An almost unrecognizable Jason Schwartzman does a fine job of playing a gone-to-seed gay Jewish writer obsessed with bringing home rough trade who are more interested in robbing him than sleeping with him. Drew Droege entertains as the gay who holds the key to all those new initiates who want to explore the local queer demimonde (here presented as ‘The Green Lantern,’ which, as these VIP spots tend to be, sounds more exotic than it really is). Directors David Lowery and Ariel Schulman pop up as fleeting faces in these scenes. If we’re given any clue to how Lee might see himself, Guadagnino shows him reading Malcolm Lowry’s Under the Volcano, also about a man hellbent on self destruction. There’s less of a sense of characterization for Allerton, with Drew Starkey playing a young man who’s most certainly eye candy, but not entirely sure about who or what he wants to be.
The puzzling, arguably one-sided ‘romance’ between Lee and Allerton leads us to a veritable conquest for the heart of darkness in the search for the mysterious yage root (aka ayahuasca) in Ecuador. As Lee begins to experience severe withdrawal symptoms on the journey, they’re waylaid in having to seek opiates. It’s here where their relationship takes on a subtle intimacy, and we begin to wonder, as does Lee, if Allerton might have reciprocal feelings. Like Tennessee Williams’ Suddenly, Last Summer, where women were used to ‘procure’ sexual subjects for a closeted family member, it’s interesting to see how, in 1950s terms, two gay men resort to the procurement of other vices when they’ve resorted to supporting one another.
Upon locating Dr. Cotter, Queer suddenly takes off in another direction entirely. A bizarre but formidably entertaining Lesley Manville, who looks like Tobin Bell portraying Dian Fossey (and in a relationship with a man played by director Lisandro Alonso), supplies the men with their sought after drug, which is visualized as a body morphing meltdown beginning with them throwing up their beating hearts and then fusing together. Based on the experience, Cotter suggests they stay, but Allerton seems bothered by what transpired. “You’ve opened a door you can’t close,” Cotter urges. “All you can do is look away.”
Earlier in the film, during what could be called the ‘honeymoon’ phase between Lee and Allerton, the two of them go see a movie, which happens to be Jean Cocteau’s Orpheus (1950), a loose adaptation of the Greek myth. In this version, a man (Jean Marais) puts on magical gloves which allow him to pass through a mirror. And the yage, while not having the telepathic powers Lee desires, instead also generates a metaphorical mirror. What’s meaningful in these connections is how we have two gay men who desperately desire to be identified as anything other than gay stumbling into a drug-induced existential crisis. Guadagnino utilizes a rather effective mechanism in several moments where we can see a faded outline of Lee making the intimate gestures towards Allerton that he could never bring himself to act upon. And like the mythical Orpheus, Lee makes the mistake of returning to Mexico, like Hades, the location he sought to lead his lover out of. But, of course, one can never really go back.
Lensed by Guadgnino’s regular DP Sayombhu Mukdeeprom, the film is a sensuous visual experience, most pronouncedly in Mexico, which takes on a heightened exotic realm, much like Fassbinder’s take on Genet’s Querelle (1982). Scripted (and produced) by Justin Kuritzkes, Queer may feel like a heartsick film, but is not despairing. There’s a definitive sense of reflecting the context of characters and their behaviors which does not feel judgmental or suggest the necessity of moral sermonizing. It’s perhaps why the soundtrack selection and score from Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross feels so exceptional as an anachronistic device. From the opening credits, with Sinead O’Connor doing a cover of Nirvana’s All Apologies (shortly followed by the band’s actual Come As You Are), Guadagnino primes us for the collapse of periods utilizing associations with creative artists from a later period who (arguably) align more with Burroughs/Lee’s ennui than many of the artists during his lifetime. From the ever quotable writer, “Hustlers of the world, there is one mark you cannot beat: the mark inside.”
Reviewed on September 3rd at the 2024 Venice Film Festival (81st edition) – In Competition section. 135 Mins.
★★★★/☆☆☆☆☆