Cowboy Caleb the liberal arts, grown-up stuff & random mischief

Moview Review: Naked Lunch

Last night I watched the movie adaptation of William S. Burroughs’s ‘Naked Lunch‘. For those of you not in the know, William S. Burroughs was an influential homosexual junkie writer in the 60’s and 70’s. He wrote a few great books, most of which revolved around himself, his drug habits and his addiction to homosexuality.

This movie has a very misleading title - there is no nudity nor much cuisine to be eaten. Instead we find the protaganist Lee, working as a bug exterminator who runs out of bug powder to kill bugs with. He returns home and finds that his wife Joan, has been cooking and shooting the bug powder to get high - �Kafka high � you feel like a bug� so she says.

Fast foward to the couple playing a game of William Tell. After they get high on bug powder, Lee tries to shoot a glass on his wife’s head. Instead he misses and kills her. He flees to a bar where he meets an insectoid creature called a mugwump which instructs him to flee to a place called Interzone. He also has to buy a Clark Nova typewriter to file his reports.

You will find in this movie, hallucinatory sequences. I sure as hell couldn’t tell when Lee was seeing things as a result of his drug abuse and when he wasn’t. Typewriters transform into insects which speak through their anuses. The theme of centipides and homosexuality run rampant. Lee is going through his own private hell and we’re all along for the ride.

This is life through the junkie’s eyes.

So everybody go watch it. You can find it on Suprnova.