[Music] queer review Daniel Craig Nails the
sardonic Spirit of writer William S Burrows in Luca guad the first and last written words
of writer William S buroughs formed the basis of this superb adaptation of queer a novel
written in the early 50s that for Myriad reasons remained unpublished until 1985 at the
time its belated arrival coincided with a major Resurgence of interest in buroughs the oldest
and longest surviving member of the original Beat Generation writers the others being Jack
kowak who never made it out of the 60s and Alan Ginsburg by then burough had received long overdue
recognition as the Godfather of the counterculture heroin was his drug of choice which assured his
longstanding association with rock and roll but his beatification by hard drug fetishists often
over shadowed the astonishing quality not to mention foresight of his writing Landing 3 years
before Ted Morgan's for a longtime definitive biography literary Outlaw until Barry miles call
me Burrows followed it 10 years ago queer was the Rosetta Stone that gave buroughs admirers the
Insight they were looking for while still writing in the hip but elegantly literary StreetWise
style that made him an idol to the likes of L Reed and Patty Smith queer expressed a so far
unseen tenderness to his work a deep-seated need that suddenly made everything about him makes
sense not just his addiction but the entirety of his prolific output in novels and short form
queer the book and the film concerns the runup to an aftermath of the moment that haunted burough
for the rest of his life in September 1951 in a drunken moment that can't be explained by sheer
recklessness he attempted to shoot a whiskey glass that his wife Joan had balanced on her
head I guess it's about time for our William act he told the smattering of guests at a
friend's place in Mexico he missed it and killed her then having slipped a hefty Morty datu
the police moved back to the States for a short time in Luca guadagnino's incredibly insightful
adaptation Daniel Craig plays Bill Lee the sudim buroughs used to spare his wealthy family from
the indignity of being related to the author of aured paperback call junkie 1953 Lee both is
Burrows and yet not buroughs but the two overlap notably in the expression of their sexuality when
we meet him in chapter 1 how do you like Mexico Lee is cruising the city's bars lurking on the
fringes of the expat gay scene Lee's gay radar is poor and his predilection for straight
guys over the readily available local rent boys almost always leads to rejection a chance
glance at a young stranger however captivates him fresh out of the military where he worked in
intelligence Eugene Allard and Drew starky is an enigma to Lee he seems straight as a die and yet
he freres with the flamboyantly gay on D Drew Dro at his local the ship a Hoy Lee affects a platonic
friendship but yearns to touch and kiss the young man as we see when they go to a screening of
Jean cocko surrealist 1950 fantasy orus the two men sit side by side but guadagnino literally
superimposes repressed desires onto the scene finally Lee bites the bullet and tells Allerton
that he is homosexual and has only recently become reconciled to that fact given the censorious times
he admits he once equated homosexuality with the painted simpering female impersonators I'd seen
in a Baltimore nightclub side note queer cement spor somewhat unsung reputation as a Pioneer in
terms of creating for himself like the similarly non-conformist French writer Jee jenet a
more assertive unapologetically masculine gay identity one drunken night allert and gives
into Le's advances and though the sex they have is vigorous and consensual allert and starts to pull
away from Lee's affections while all this is going on Lee has developed a Fascination for a South
American plant called y AKA aasa that apparently gives users telepathic powers and has caused an
intelligence war between the CIA and the Kremlin so in a desperate attempt to keep the younger
man in his sights and by his side he asks alleron to accompany him on a journey into South America
to investigate the truth about y with no strings attached it won't cost you a scent says Lee
perhaps not in money replies alleron the Quest for y is a bit of a McGuffin since what B Lee
ultimately is after is a way to merge himself entirely with another person Burrow's writing is
is filled with references to mind control and body swapping he even made a short film in 1972 called
Bill and Tony which was made to be projected over his face and that of British filmmaker Anthony
Balch in that sense sex is not enough Lee wants to possess allerton's body or even consume it
which is why the sex scenes in queer are so violent so urgent and yet every time it happens
guadagnino takes the camera away from the action the sad fact is that the ferocity of Lee's love
making is pushing allert and farther and farther away quite aside from the terrific industrial
Jazzy score by Trent resner and attakus Ross the soundtrack has a great deal to do with the
success of guadagnino's film opening with chanate OK Conor's eerily unadorned version of Nirvana's
All Apologies is a great start and the ironic use of that band's song Come As You Are is simply
inspired Burrows almost always carried a gun just as he lived out his last days on medicinal
morphine that could have killed an elephant Prince and New Order similarly figure on a sound
track interspersed with more contemporary Tunes from the likes of Benny Goodman and others the
second half of the film The Light but deceptively important chapter 2 traveling companions seiz
Lee and allardt and encounter the crazy botanist Dr Cotter a fabulously deranged turn by a near
unrecognizable Leslie Manville ostensibly a bowl of leaf and Twig soup the Y she provides them
opens up a psychic connection between the two men that will change them both irrevocably Le in
particular y isn't a portal to another place Lee has previously been warned it's a mirror and you
may not like what you see cockos orus comes kining back to mind the change it brings about in Lee
is alluded to in a subtle beautiful Koda which presents us with the older Bill Lee in a dream
scene reminiscent of 2001 A Space Odyssey Craig looks the spit of w USB here as guadagnino shows
us the dying man reflecting on his life this is the buroughs that finished his last novel The
Western lands in 1987 with the admission that the old writer Couldn't Write anymore because he
had reached the end of words the end of what can be done with words this is the burough reflecting
on the regrets of his life Joan their son Billy his British lover Ian Somerville who died in a car
crash his Moroccan lover Kiki a victim of murder with this film guadagnino and Craig have succeeded
where David Cronenberg failed in humanizing a man whose preference for the company of cats was
construed as misanthropy burough wanted to communicate without speaking and with this highly
intelligent film guadagnino has done that for him translating into ravishing visuals the final
words he entered into his journal before his death in August 199 7 aged 83 love he wrote what
is it most natural painkiller what there is love