A New Week exploring queer cinema (THE DOOM GENERATION)

For some strange reason this was actually the movie that marked Greg Araki’s Style, despite the fact that it is only this and his following one (Nowhere) that actually adopted such extreme visuals and surrealism as a style.

Jordan White and Amy Blue, two troubled teens, pick up an adolescent drifter, Xavier Red, when they somehow save him from the attack of some homophobic gang. After a while they just throw him on the street, only to met him up later in a store. A murder takes place and the three of them flee together, bonded strongly after this common fate. The bisexual Xavier will make the two kids explore themselves and their limits, as the three of them will jump into a road trip into Hell, full of sex, perversion, fasists, talking heads (not the band), violence and godsend signs of the up coming apocalypse.

This is supposed to be an “Heterosexual film by Greg Araki” and I have to admit that in that way Araki tries to define the new face of the queer cinema. A cinema that doesn’t concentrate on portraying homosexual couples or kids. Quite the contrary it tries to present the complete scale of sexuality. Avoiding the simplicity of the boy-meet-girls or boy-meets-boy that actually conquers in the usual American filmography, Araki likesto explore the hidden secrets of his country and everything that you can consider abnormal.

And it’s true that during this trip to Hell (ok it’s America but the symbolisms here come and go like that) Amy, Jordan and the sexually charged Xavier meet so many people, and they live up to the next extreme. From a hunted trio they turn into the next Natural Born Killers, but here there is no political correctness to stop them. They drive, the fuck, they kill as long as Araki believes that there is another limit to cross.

When you talk about style here is the movie. The whole story is actually based on the visuals and the next extreme that the director-writer wants to explore. It’s true that the road movie formula, that explores America really gives him the right to present no matter how many peculiar cases he thinks of. After a while you even stop thinking about them being a bit too much. The whole film is out of the normal right from the start. If you are a fan of narrative cinema and you love analyzing the story, yo really are doomed here. You don’t have any chance of loving this.

Of course you cannot say that the film is a queer film in the typical sense. There is too much of Rose McGowan’s tits in the shots, homosexuality is nearly mentioned, no matter how hot you can consider Jonathan Schaech to be, or James Duval (though I have to admit Schaech look in his voyeristic scene is really something). Araki films all the three of them with passion and  makes sexuality to conquer  the air.

This film is about speed, frenzy rhythm, hysteria, nudity, exploration of sex. No actual characters, rare connection to reality, despite making an interesting allegory, that is to pushed to actually convince you. Style is the question here and that’s why most of people who loved Araki connect him with this movie. It’s really powerful and stays in your mind only for its visuals. But to tell you the truth I don’t think that these visuals and the eccentricities are actual what makes Araki’s films rally tick and 10 years after this 1995 film he proved me right. I think Araki is more sensitive and much better when he manages to control his appetite for stylish cinema. The hype never actually helped him, especially when the film sometimes is considered as another Trainspotting, another Kids or just a Rose McGowan vehicle. Too bad that most people connect Araki with this kind of movie.