The short that asks the question: would you marry me if I became an evil butterfly?
Tag Archives: Romance
CAPSULE: QUEER (2024)
366 Weird Movies may earn commissions from purchases made through product links.
DIRECTED BY: Luca Guadagnino
FEATURING: Daniel Craig, Drew Starkey, Jason Schwartzman, Lesley Manville
PLOT: The arrival of an enigmatic young man in 1950s Mexico City disrupts William Lee’s dissolute routine with the promise of companionship.
COMMENTS: Queer begins with a character sketch in the opening credits. Static shots of a small apartment reveal a cheap mattress, and a series of things—the first being a scuttling centipede. There are rumpled blankets, pairs of glasses, cigarettes (both stubbed-out and fresh), books, a passport and visa, a camera, a ViewMaster, and an array of pistols. Seven of them, to be precise, all nicely arranged. By the end of the opening credits, you know the character pretty well, even if you’re unfamiliar both with the author William Lee facsimulates, and the book the movie is based upon.
William Lee is an obviously intelligent but woefully uncharismatic fellow approaching or already in middle age. He has difficulty keeping still, and the camera mimics his erratic physicality by cutting from micro-shot to micro-shot as the protagonist bumps through his alcohol-fueled days and nights. It’s hot, and we can feel it alongside the array of gringos who’ve set up a little gay community in a borough of Mexico City that seems comprised exclusively of cheap bars, cheaper apartments, and by-the-hour hotels. We are there, with Lee, and can feel him either about to crack from his own tension or melt away into a puddle of boozy-Beatnik soup.
Queer, the film, has two halves: the first is a (very) awkward romance of sorts, wherein Daniel Craig’s Lee clumsily attempts to woo a young cypher named Eugene. We never learn too much about the guy, which is apt, in that one of the few things we do learn concerns his involvement with army intelligence during World War Two—and the staggering amount of lies he was tasked with sifting through. The second half involves a desperate Lee seeking an ancient drug in the Ecuadorian jungle to overcome his communication deficits, having—despite his self-perceived lack of persuasive powers—convinced Eugene to be his semi-paid companion. Surrealistic touches season the goings-on: disorienting flares of television static; a giant Lee looking in on a tiny Lee through a mock-up of an apartment building within his apartment room; and even a jaunt to see Cocteau’s Orpheus.
Guadagnino confronts the challenge of translating an incomplete Burroughs novel for the screen, and acquits himself well. I’m inclined to be forgiving toward the movie, as adapting any of Burroughs’ word-bursts (be they novels, anecdotes, memoirs, or otherwise) into semi-coherent narratives requires making difficult choices. Craig is a delight as the author, Starkey maintains a tight balance of charm and impenetrability, and Guadagnino keeps the look and feel on course even as the subject matter becomes increasingly slippery. With unrequited love (but plenty of sex), gallons of sweat (despite chills from junk withdrawal), and a time-bending soundtrack, Queer is an pleasing experience, even as it often crossed my mind that a man this addled shouldn’t be carrying around any firearms—much less seven of them.
WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:
![Queer [Blu-ray]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41iYJGvYD2L._SL500_.jpg)
- Daniel Craig
- Drew Starkey
- Jason Schwartzman
- Lesley Manville
- Luca Guadagnino
SATURDAY SHORT: HOTEL KALURA (2022)
A woman whose thoughts are plagued with chaos meets a man who would literally move the moon for her.
IT CAME FROM THE READER-SUGGESTED QUEUE: SUBWAY (1985)
366 Weird Movies may earn commissions from purchases made through product links.
DIRECTED BY: Luc Besson
FEATURING: Isabelle Adjani, Christopher Lambert, Richard Bohringer, Michel Galabru, Jean-Hugues Anglade, Jean Reno
PLOT: Fred, a free-spirited thief, absconds with valuable papers belonging to Héléna, the kept wife of a powerful criminal, and escapes into the underground world of the Paris Métro, where he enlists the help of an entire community living off the grid.
COMMENTS: Subway gets started with a truly satisfying kick. We meet Fred in media res, tuxedo-clad and barreling down a Parisian highway in a cheap car with a load of similarly attired muscle in hot pursuit. But he even knows that the chase doesn’t really begin until he’s got the proper music, and so he ignores the impending threat just long enough to give him the chance to slam in a cassette tape and queue up Eric Serra’s punchy synth-funk beat. Once that roars in, we’ve got ourselves a bona fide chase.
It’s a very Luc Besson kind of joke that, once Fred (Lambert, only a year after being introduced to English-speaking audiences as Tarzan) eludes his pursuers in the underground, we’ll never see him in the sun again, and we definitely won’t have another thrill ride. Instead, we’ll join Fred in discovering the very different way of life taking place in the tunnels of the Métro. It may seem familiar, with commerce and law enforcement and entertainment, but it’s a very different attitude down there. It’s a laid-back, “que sera, sera” kind of vibe, and Fred adapts to it quickly; in his first night, he meets friends who give him food, new clothes, and a place to sleep; he makes the acquaintance of an incredibly strong man who can pry open handcuffs with his bare hands; and he pops into an impromptu party where he immediately starts making friends. If Fred is a natural fit for subway life, Héléna, the gangster’s wife who Fred is both smitten with and cheekily blackmailing, is a more surprising addition to the community. Adjani is stunning in a series of terrifically 80s outfits, but she is possibly most striking in a scene where she returns to her above-ground life and realizes that she can’t stomach it. She gently ingratiates herself into the Métro culture, because that’s what the good guys do in Subway.
Subway is one of the pivotal entries in the French movement known as “cinéma du look,” in which Besson and fellow directors like Jean-Jacques Beineix and Leos Carax cast aside distractions like narrative in favor of maximum style. Subway has style to burn. Indeed, logic is not anyone’s top priority. One thing may be important at one moment and forgotten the next. Sure, Fred is on the run from zealous policemen and vengeful gangsters, but that’s no reason he can’t take a quick time-out to rehearse the amazing new band he’s assembled out of the various buskers hanging out in the underground. There’s even time for him to team up with the well-connected flower salesman for a quick payroll robbery. Things just happen in Subway because it would be nice if they did. If you’re spending time wondering where Fred finds the explosives to blast open an office safe, or where the band comes up with their matching safari outfits, your head’s in the wrong place.
What’s most fascinating about Subway is how little it cares for the basics of story construction. There are a host of characters, all interesting but defined by the fewest possible characteristics, from the hard-bitten police detective who despises his junior officers, to the friendly purse thief whose primary trait is wearing roller skates, to the bemused drummer played by Jean Reno who hardly utters three sentences but still seems cooler and more relaxed than in any other role in his career. There’s a romance, but it’s conducted almost entirely smoldering looks and chill dialogue. There’s even a climactic collision of passion and violence that is tempered by a happy song to such a degree that even a corpse can’t help but nod along. It doesn’t make sense, and it’s not supposed to. Subway is made of pleasant little moments, and like the people they depict, we just take them as they come.
WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:
(This movie was nominated for review by Gary Simanton. Suggest a weird movie of your own here.)
SATURDAY SHORT: ABOVE THE CLOUDS (2022)
The thrill and anxiety of new love makes a young woman hallucinate until she coughs butterflies.