Naked Lunch

The film Naked Lunch remains today as one of the greatest psychedelic experiences available without actual drugs, despite attempts from such upstarts as "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" and the indescribably bizarre "Dougal and the Blue Cat".

The film takes a rather different direction than the book; rather than describing the under culture, its beliefs and the resulting delusion, the film plays as a continuous, single track description of a man's life on the edge of reality.

Though seeming to open on typical bohemian culture, the dividing line between reality and fantasy quickly disappear; at first the viewer is challenged to draw the line, before it sinks inexorably from view leaving us with a seemingly continuous illusory experience, punctuated periodically with references to the world we started in.

By the end of the film, the first question asked will always be "What the hell happened there then?", generally followed by the never-ending discussion of what the actual plot was.

Suffice it to say that this is a film that, unless your brain rejects it entirely, will stay with you for a very long time; these kinds of visions and nightmares are not easily forgotten.

Good?

Bad?

I've seen it five times, and I still don't even know.

Archive