2. Totally F***ed Up
Gregg Araki is something of an elder statesman to queer cinema- he was at the forefront of the genres official creation in the late 80s/early 90s, when the genre really came to light and the name was founded. His films carry a mordant humour and unflinching, deadpan eye for the things he is presenting. While one would think that this would make him relatively inaccessible, in fact the opposite is true- his films, whilst being certainly gay-oriented and aimed at that market, contain certain truths that are fundamentally universal, and they are also fantastic films in their own right. Made in the early 90s as the second part of Arakis Apocalypse Trilogy, and opening with a fact about gay teen suicide, Totally F***ed Up presents the audience with 15 short vignettes about the life of a gay teenager (love, sex, drugs, etc), and the wider social comment it ends up making means that it is not just a queer film- it is an open-ended moral maze wrapped in a stylistic vision of teenage consumer hell. We are taken through a non-stop, relentless tour of teenage life in that time, and you come out feeling as though you have genuinely learnt something. And yet, while the film works as an incredibly subversive social comment), this is one that you can just sit back and watch, such is the technical skill on display- this is an exciting feature. The film flits between home-video and linear cinema, intercut with self-aware title cards which present comments from Araki himself (how is it that the world can be this sad), and this has the effective of making an energetic, exciting, raw and tender piece of cinema, rife with obvious yet justified symbolism (the yellow sign boasting the words The End) that works even when you detach it from the points it is making. Given the title, which is also one of the films opening lines (I guess you could say Im totally f*cked up, one of the films many characters states), you could expect this to be a depressing and nihilistic vision of teenage angst, as Araki calls it, and it is. The themes are dealt with respectfully and in a clear-eyed manner, something people mistake for cheap exploitation. But to look at this film twenty years on provides a sobering message on how far weve come. This film is an angry, necessary howl of rage made at a time when the scales of judgement were tipping from prejudice and acceptance. That there was once a time when it needed to be made, when a film this heartfelt and angry slipped out from a prominent rising star of the time, is very telling indeed. This is ultimately reflected in Arakis later films, such as Kaboom, which can be noted for its far lighter tone- homosexuality is simply more recognized now. Seeing this film, and the dark feelings bubbling away underneath it, really makes one reflect; this reflection, above all, makes the film an un-missable experience for anyone regardless of race, gender or orientation.