Wednesday, August 25, 2004

Nowhere

I should have guessed this film would be rotten when the back cover blurb just tails off with "Sort of..."

It's directed by Gregg Araki, who made The Living End, one of those seminal Love-In-The-Time-Of-AIDS dramas... and this is a very odd film about lust, drugs, clubbing, and alien lizards. Sort of.

It's a truly bizarre film - it looks great, as though it was filmed in Ikea by Peter Greenaway. A boy called Dark argues with his girlfriend, her girlfriend, and their drugged friends. There's partying, bulimia, pills, and a lot of talk about a coming apocalypse.

But the action is mostly filmed as though it just happened near the camera, and the performances are stylised to the point of unwatchability. Araki's script doesn't help - it's rather as though someone had asked cult kids' authors Pip & Jane Baker to write a drugs movie.

It was so bad, by halfway through, I was even fastforwarding through the sex scenes.

The ending is unbelievable, however. Dark is reunited with his new friend Michelangelo, who had been kidnapped by aliens. The two fall into bed, where Michelangelo makes a startling announcement: "All I thought as I was being put into the space pod, is how much I loved you."

The two realise that they will be happy together forever, and fall asleep in each other's arms. Until Michelangelo turns into a giant cockroach and runs away.

The End. Sort of.

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