Gregg Araki is one of the truly great queer maverick directors. His brilliant, thrillingly transgressive, teen apocalypse trilogy is given the classy Criterion treatment this month on Blu-ray. But don’t be fooled- each film is like having an incendiary device going off in your head.
Totally F***ed Up (1993). A Godardian study of teenage homo angst in L.A., partially shot with a handheld camera and with title cards numbering sections. Its haphazard manner masks a tightly structured character study of a group of young friends who have rejected the stereotypes of gay culture and stagger through the minefields of modern life., sidestepping bombs like AIDs, drugs, alienation, fag bashing and suicide- the disenfranchised, screwed-up kids that author Dennis Cooper so scarily and brilliantly writes about. The cast is uniformly terrific and believable, with a special nod to James Duval as Andy, whose terminally bored hip pose is shattered when he falls for someone. A tough, heartfelt and provocative film.
The Doom Generation (1995) “I don’t know what it is but I feel really weird tonight,” says the sweet, if dim, Jordan (James Duval) to his punked-out, permanently pissed off girlfriend Amy (Rose McGowan). “Like something’s going to happen.” Director Gregg Araki’s punk version of Godard’s Weekend is an incendiary apocalyptic cartoon- loaded with sex and violence and bristling with black humor. Amy Blue (Rose McGowan), a foul-mouthed, amphetamine-popping bad girl, and her passively sweet boyfriend Jordan (James Duval) pick up a sexy drifter named Xavier (Johnathon Schaech) and head across the country, leaving a pile of bodies behind them every time they stop the car. A comic/horrific fantasia about an America filled with stupid roadside slogans, bad fast food and stores where everything cost $6.66. You don’t have to be Damien to figure out where this is heading. Araki calls this is “heterosexual movie,” but trust me: the flirtatious quality between Duval’s Jordan and the dangerous Xavier (Schaech) is anything but. The second film in director Gregg Araki’s “Teenage Apocalypse Trilogy,” it pulsates with jet-black humor, loony rude dialogue, wild art direction, splashes of hallucinatory color and a killer soundtrack. Sexy, surreal, violent and very, very funny. The three leads are dreamy and dig into their parts with just the right deadpan coolness. With fun cameos by Parker Posey, Nicky Katt, Heidi Fleiss and Margaret Cho. What other film has a bad boy hunk with a Jesus tattoo on his dick?
Nowhere (1997) “I’m only 18 years old and totally doomed,” moans Dark (James Duval). And it’s true: he is having a gnarly day in L.A. His girlfriend, Mel (Rachel True), is fucking around, his friends are committing suicide, he keeps spying a lizard-like alien abducting people and he just spent a lot of money on CDs. The last film in Gregg Araki’s apocalyptic teen trilogy is his best- a dark, pop-psychedelic cartoon brimming with dazed, cute, stoned-out nihilistic kids whose obsessions with sex and death are expressed in Valley Girl-speak. It’s like Clueless with nipple rings. Violent, sexy and often dementedly funny, it’s everything Less Than Zero should have been. Duval is perfect as the dreamy-eyed, hopelessly romantic “Everyteen,” and Araki’s visual style is as startling as it is phantasmagorical- art directed to the hilt, saturated with color and overlaid with a loud, driving, sensational soundtrack.
It’s about time! I believe this is the first time NOWHERE has been on disc in the U.S.