Queer by Luca Guadagnino

Last updated on September 3, 2024

A film by Luca Guadagnino

With: Daniel Craig, Drew Starkey, Jason Schwartzman, Lesley Manville, Henry Zaga, Omar Apollo, Drew Droege, Ariel Schulman, Colin Bates, Simon Rizzoni

In 1950s Mexico City, William Lee, an American expat in his late forties, leads a solitary life amidst a small American community. However, the arrival in town of Eugene Allerton, a young student, stirs William into finally establishing a meaningful connection with someone.

Our rate: **

Luca Guadagnino has so far failed to prove himself a great filmmaker. At most, he’s a good maker, a disciple of Bava and Argento rather than Ferreri, rather diligent, and who excels more in the small provocation than in the great work of art. His remake of Suspiria was actually rather interesting, with some refreshingly good ideas. With Queer, he tackles – the word is not too strong – an interesting project, adapting a story by S. Burrough for the screen. The exercise demands application, imagination and mastery of his art, for the very essence lies in aesthetics, that famous atmosphere which is entirely worth the subject. The first part of the film is disconcerting for several reasons. The first, narrative, probably linked to the original story, gives very few clues as to the identity and deep motivations of the main character whose footsteps we follow, sometimes – and this is the second reason – against a backdrop of Nirvana or Prince. Disconcerting, and not necessarily in the best taste, summoning up very 90s-tinged effluvia when the story seems to take place much more in the 60s. The first part of the film stretches out beyond reason, and both cinematographically and narratively, a repetitive pattern is established, without this repetition (in the style of a new novel) including any variants or small details that would reinforce the overall impression. At this point, that is, during the entire first hour of the film, we don’t really understand why Guadagnino has sought to take up this challenge, so much so that his own cinema here seems constrained, impeded, or would sound false if he were to let go of the snippet. Having said that, we can take some satisfaction from this first part, starting with the interesting direction of the actors, who radically transform (and almost rebirth as an actor) Daniel Craig, in a garb and posture that are in stark contrast to the high-class 007 style.) This very Bukowskian role (reminiscent of Ferreri‘s Tales of Ordinary Madness) allows him to break away from the stereotype, and gives him an acting space that he uses to marvelous effect, fleshing out his character in a story where the body, its wear and tear and the beauty of its youth, play an essential role. Another good point is the sobriety of the approach, particularly in terms of set design, which familiarizes the viewer with a few grimy interiors, and a few equally grimy streets, which are both a stake in and a consequence of the life choices of these few men who are more or less adrift, more or less in transit, more or less waiting for a future or immediate pleasure, in a Mexico that is both a refuge and a hideout. Since the characters’ motivations are not immediately obvious, we can still imagine Queer as an espionage story, in the manner of Claire Denis‘s recent, meticulously crafted Stars at noon. But the story’s development will take us resolutely elsewhere, bringing with it an element of geographical disorientation (we travel all over South America), but also into an elsewhere where physical issues and desires will be less thwarted, more explicit, and will gradually give way to another issue, that of spiritual escape. The search for transhumance, for a spiritual way out, a death drive that goes hand in hand with a highly thwarted life drive. Our hero doesn’t sail by sight at all; he knows exactly where life has taken him, what it has brought him, and where it’s taking him. He has few illusions about what’s real: the young man he’s fallen in love with, and who feeds his desire, can’t bring him a reciprocity of feeling that would take him back to a bygone youth. Illusion must satisfy him. But his addictions catch up with him, and the motif of the great voyage is born, as is Guadagnino‘s intention to finally move closer to a psychedelic, sensory hallucination, more suited to his way of asserting himself as a visual filmmaker, culminating in a lovely fusion scene that would certainly not have displeased Cronenberg. Having come full circle, the story returns to where it began, leaving us with him on what in every sense seemed to be the platform of departure and arrival.