Peneflix MOVIE REVIEWS BY PENEFLIX
Watching this nebulous, evocative film, Thomas Mann’s (1875-1955) “Death in Venice” kept plundering the forefront my mind; a distinguished writer so obsessed with a much younger boy that it destroys his rationale, eventually leading to his demise. In “Queer”, replaced by a decadent, drug and alcohol addicted “William Lee”. Daniel Craig’s, metamorphosis is astounding, erased is the 007, suave, “shaken, not stirred” debonair hero, by a paunchy, seedy, pathetically doting middle-aged man, sickeningly in love with a vacillating, jejune “Eugene”; an androgenous, sinuously sensational, vapid “empty” facsimile.
Director Luca Guadagnino (“Call Me by Your Name”) leans heavily on past triumphs in this adaptation of William S. Burroughs’ 1985 novella of the same title; Mexico City (1950’s) is the venue for at many times, a fantastical, surreal jaunt, ex-pat “Lee” rambles to find solace, love, and lack of liability for his culpable habituations.
In addition to Craig’s stratospheric performance, touches of the macabre infuse the quest for “yaga” a drug to inspire telepathy, finds the protagonists in a snake-infested jungle with the Queen of the tundra, concocter of the mind-altering potion, “Dr. Cotter” (always impeccable Lesley Manville) presiding. The cinematography is luscious, confounding, adding layers of intentional obfuscation to a scenario bathed in intrigue and confusion.
THREE STARS!!!
Peneflix
