Movie of the Week |
||
| 9/23/02 Naked Lunch by William Burroughs was the last book to be banned in the United States. It was said that it was one book that could never be made into a movie. They were half right. This movie isn't a literal adaptation of the book, as the book is incomprehensible. What David Cronenberg has done is take pieces of actual life and merged it with pieces from the book. Bill Lee is an recovering drug addict who is living a mundane life as an exterminator. Soon, though, he and his wife become addicted to the bug powder he is supposed to be using for killing roaches. He gets high and starts with the rambling oratories and delusional visions. One night while high, Bill accidentally shoots his with in the head. This leads him down a road of true paranoia. He begins to have extraordinary hallucinations that lead him from one implausible situation to another. He begins to believe that he is an secret agent assigned to write reports for his employer. Even Bill doesn't know exactly what he needs to do or who he's doing it for. He ends up in a North African-like locale called Interzone. He meets all sorts of characters, human and otherwise, that are all imaginary. Or are they. Bill even realizes he is probably hallucinating the whole thing. He also meets the wife of his possible adversary that is a dead ringer for his dead wife. Naked Lunch is a mixture of drugs, indiscriminate sex and psychosis. Naked Lunch is a very difficult movie to take in for the average viewer. You have incessant drug use, vile hallucinatory creatures and unsettling sexual situations. As Bill Lee, based directly on Burroughs, Peter Weller did a remarkable job portraying the doomed author. Real life wife Judy Davis plays Joan Lee/Joan Frost. Ian Holm plays Tom Frost, protagonist to Bill Lee. Cronenberg takes the vision that Burroughs had and adds his own unique and devious style. CDWH |
||
