Totally F***ed Up [1994] [DVD]

I'm a huge fan of Gregg Araki's work (The Living End, Mysterious Skin) but freely acknowledge that it is not for everyone. The brief Amazon synopsis has the potential to mislead, since it describes this film as 'the tale of six gay teenagers in LA'. This is not a 'Broken Hearts Club' or a gay 'Sex and the City'; it's not even a teen angst coming-out movie. Rather, it is a bleak portrayal of the disenfranchisement of an unwanted generation. 'Totally F***ed Up' is actually the third in a trilogy (The Doom Generation, Nowhere) in which Gregg Araki is highlighting the nihilism and decline of American youth. Each of the trilogy can be viewed as a stand-alone film, since there is no continuation of characters or storylines; the commonality comes from the exploration of the central themes: ostracism from society, HIV, homophobia, persecution, suicide and despair.

'Totally F***ed Up' is the most mainstream of this trilogy. There is the usual eye-catching assortment of characters roaming around in the background: crazy homeless women, BDSM couples, etc. but it is certainly less surreal than, say, Nowhere. The film takes the form of '15 random celluloid fragments' in the day-to-day lives of six gay teenagers, interspersed with occasional messages to the viewer ("Can this world really be as sad as it seems?"). It is filmed in part documentary-style - one character interviews the others about their feelings regarding society, love, sex etc, because he wants to "show the way things really are"). In between these interviews we observe aspects of their daily lives: taking drugs, anonymous sexual encounters, homophobic attacks, infidelity, fights with the family. Hence this is not a fictional story, but a caustic portrayal of reality.

Inevitably the film is low-budget, and can appear dark and grainy in places (art imitating life?). However, this film genuinely is a work of art (Araki wrote, shot and directed it himself) and it is bursting with social and political commentary ('AIDS is government-sponsored genocide') as well as moments of ironic, if double-edged, humour ("I believe in love. I mean...there's gotta be something for people to cling to besides TV, right?"). The dialogue and acting are top quality; particularly James Duval who plays the main character, Andy. Duval appears in all three films in the trilogy, and clearly is capable of giving the characters exactly those elements which Araki most wishes to illuminate.

Having read the above, you won't be expecting any happy endings. Indeed, what makes the film so poignant is that there is no sense of optimism about the future; when Andy says "All I really want is to be happy for just one second...to be able to look around and not see shit", you know that he is voicing the thoughts of a generation, and that this wish is, ultimately, an unattainable one. 'Totally F***ed Up' is certainly bleak, bitter and depressing; but it is also powerful, affecting and thought-provoking. So if you're ready to take a break from escapist Hollywood fantasies, don some dark glasses, light a Marlboro, and watch this film.

"Totally F***ed Up" is not a movie for everyone, and rather for those who are interested in an insightful yet jarring personal analysis of the disenfranchisement of our youth. In fact, I suspect that many a young man and women will witness with this movie to the point of empathy, as it angst will reflect and mimic their own. Fraught with teenage anxiety and fear, the movie jars the senses forcing one to see the damage inflicted upon our young men and women, by a society either unwilling or incapable of intervening on their behalf. Despite its original date of 1993/4, the story has lost none of its relevance, especially after 2010 having seen an unprecedented number of gay young men and women committing suicide. Whilst suicide is not a central theme to the story, it opens and ends with such, almost as if the message of consequence needs to be re-emphasised for the audience. We are after all beneficiaries of such consequence, if not participants through our apathy and omissions.

Greg Araki can be described as a modern seer for this genre, and his movies (of which there are several) have become somewhat prophetic and revealing. His call to action which loudly pronounces itself throughout this film, is a pronouncement that if nothing is done to save this generation, then we are all nothing more than purveyors of its destruction. Indeed "Totally F***ed Up" shows a generation in decline, caught up in a pervasive nihilism that rejects the normative 'order', finding identity in their peers and temporary fixation with carnal gratification. Sex is tool, used in the manipulation of others, and the mere satisfaction of self. It has little value other than to gratify the carnal lusting of self, and at times to be used for companionship as an offset to the debilitating isolation and loneliness so evident in their lives. All around them society seems to continue it mechanical existence, and yet these young men and women are hardly seen or acknowledged by a world quick to judge. Greg Araki exposes this hypocrisy, showing fleeting scenes of adult domestic violence, insanity and homelessness, inter-spliced between the stories of these young men and women. It is this society that seeks to hold the moral high ground, and its lessons on morality are both hollow and insincere. It has inherited the disenfranchised youth, not as a consequence of those young men and women, but because of its own barbarism and denial.

My one criticism of this DVD is the sound quality, which at times is extremely poor. I found some of the discussions to be difficult to hear, and as such did not follow some of the introspective as well as I should have.

Do not buy this movie if you are looking for a sleek Hollywood production, with all the niceties that come with such. This is more art, than it is film, and as such should be considered with some circumspection. At the same time it is not only art, it is a prophetic narrative and commentary of our times. My hope that it is not too late, to change the consequence Akari alludes to in his message!

This does what it claims, it is fifteen sort of linked films, set in LA in the eighties. It is amongst the first groundbreaking, `tell it like it is,' real life, gay pieces of cinema. It chooses as its subjects a mixed bag of troubled teens, and starts off with them talking about the high rate of suicide in teenage gays and it is being encouraged by the likes of music by `The Cure' and more worryingly - `The Smiths'!

There are a number of pieces to camera using a variety of different cameras and therefore the quality jumps around even more than the narrative. The sound quality leaves a fair bit to be desired too and requires your full attention to ensure not missing anything.

It is quite dated in a really good way, for those that lived through the eighties, there will be so much here that you had forgotten, like the huge brick mobiles and dial up sex lines - excellent! There are loads of comic or even comi-tragic moments; lets face it a scene based around two lesbians in a room full of `donor' gay guys and a turkey baster is fairly hard to categorize. Then there is teenage `street wisdom', like "love lasts as long as a squirt in the dark"..

There is a great piece where they discuss who is a fanciable screen god/star and their top three are Mel Gibson, Tom Cruise and Michael Stipe. In a very Bruce La Bruce way there are lots of questions or statement flashed up on the screen, and this film does ask far more questions than it ever set out to answer - that really is part of its hidden charm. That I feel was the intention of Director Gregg Araki (Mysterious Skin Mysterious Skin [DVD] [2005]and Kaboom Kaboom [DVD]being two more well known later works) who shows as much of the film making process as what it results in.

This is a montage of films and that can be distracting as it acts as an alienation device from getting too close to the characters or the action. This is still an essential piece of cinema in the ever growing panoply of gay cinema and should be lauded for that. It will not be to everybody's taste and can be (rightly) accused of being too long, but there is enough here to keep you entertained. One of my favourites is going to a gig by the `legendary' `Kamikaze D*ldo's'. It is also a massive trip down eighties memory lane, with AIDS as a spectre of doom hanging over seventies hedonism culture. If original and groundbreaking gay cinema is one of your things then you really ought to check out the fantastic `Taxi zum Klo' Taxi Zum Klo [DVD]and /or `Nighthawks',Nighthawks/Strip Jack Naked - Nighthawks 2 [DVD] [1978] I am sure you will enjoy them too.