russdaren:
This movie comes very close to the spirit of the book.
Actually that is not true. The reason I liked the film (same reason as I know I'd hate the book) is that Cronenberg had a clear vision about what to do with the material. Many critics have said that the film is as much of a mess as Burroughs' novel, but I find it hard to believe that any of these critics have actually seen the film. In contray to what many people say, the film has a linnear plot that is easy to follow.
The film is not difficult to grasp at all. It's a simple plot involving agents, strange missions and talking A-holes but in general what it's all about is Bill Lee sitting in his apartment and hallucinating the content of the book he is writing under the influence of drugs. He has it mixed up in his mind that he is an agent working for Interzone inc. sending reports to his commissioner, when in fact all he is doing is writing "Naked Lunch". This becomes clear when he returns from one of his fantasies and is sitting in the apartment with his friends discussing the pages of the book he is writing, which he can't recall writing for obvious reasons. So it is obvious that the film goes in and out of his state-of-mind, so I don't know what is so hard to grasp here. It's a litteral fantasy about the creative process of William Burroughs' alter ego.
And all the secondary plots about agents and double-agents is just a way for Cronenberg to portray Bill's paranoid state of mind. The homosexual content is basically Bill dealing with the fact that he might be homosexual, and if it is so, then he might have killed his wife on purpose on an unconscious level, which Burroughs claimed to be the reason behind his sense of guilt. I'm not sure if that's Cronenberg's vision since it pretty ambigous, but that's all a part of Burroughs life. And that is what makes "Naked Lunch" briliant, it's so ambigous and rich on content.
The ending is briliant as well, altough I have a feeling most people hated it because it gave no explenations. In the end Cronenberg takes us to where we were at the beginning. William Burroughs said he started writing as a way of dealing with his personal demons: the guilt of shooting his wife. And that is what happens in the beginning of this film, which is repeated in the end upon the arrival to Annexia. Bill is still wrestling his demons in the fantasy landscape of his mind, which basically means he is working on another book.
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