The Decline of Stupid Fucking Western Civilization

Day Two of Being Boring's Araki Blogathon!

There's an exchange of dialogue in the middle of Gregg Araki's sophomore picture, Totally F***ed Up, that, in a rather concise way, sums up a great deal of the film. Patricia and Michele are laying out at night and staring up into the stars.

Patricia - I like to just close my eyes, shut them really tight - and pretend, no matter where it is I happen to be, that I'm in paradise...

Michele - Don't you bump into stuff?

For the teens of Totally F***ed Up are an apathetic array of rich kids, burdened by all that which real life requires of them. Told in 15 "random" celluloid fragments, the film takes the shape of an experimental narrative video assemblage orchestrated by Steven, one of our 6 rebellious clan of friends. Intermittently interrupting the flow of the video (which is a rather shoddy imitation of those dynamic works of early 90's experimental found footage films, see Greta Snider or Luther Price) are the filmed goings on of our band of aimless youths as they fuck, cheat, drink, smoke, and do all of those glorious things privileged youths do to overcompensate for the position they were born into. The celluloid fragments are not, as Araki claims in his intro, random in any way, though an appreciatively aimless 25 minute introductory segment solely gives import to character study and posits very little narrative drive, ending finally when an intertitle announces "Insert Narrative Here."

At this point we are introduced to new characters who will set about a cataclysmic course of events for our world weary band of protagonists. This is, afterall, the first installment in Araki's "Teen Apocalypse Trilogy," and though the apocalypse for this motley crew is not literal, as it would later be enacted by space aliens and neo-Nazis, the queer bashing and suicides are enough to obliterate the pseudo-jaded world in which our teens inhabit. Because, really, for teenagers, and especially Araki's, each person is his own universe - the slightest irritation disrupting the entire balance of their self-absorbed stratosphere. That is not to say that you don't feel for these kids. True, Araki does have an early-Cronenbergian knack for discovering the most emotionally deficit actors to fill his parts, yet through it all, James Duval's depressive shrugs still work their way into your heart and you are crushed when, in his words, "I got burned. My poor little fuckin' heart got broken. B. F. D."

The loneliness of the film is unparalleled in Araki's ouvre. Most shots, when the gang is not gathered together before indicative signs which read things like "End," locate them in isolation - in bed or in a corner of the room, huddled on the floor. By contrast, the lesbians are almost perpetually together; their role in the film, more maternal than sororital. It is also in Totally F***ed Up that we find the only (to use a term from the previous post) mad eyed screamer in isolation. Immediately after the "Insert Narrative Here" sign, a stranger approaches Andy (James Duval) on the street and begins to flirt. They walk away together and, just when things are beginning to look promising, a hysterical woman placed below a gaudy billboard for Excalibur: Hotel and Casino hollers "Come back here, you asshole! Come back!" Her plaintive wails are juxtaposed with King Arthur's insanely jovial face. The pair walk past here, unfazed. And yet you know that nothing good will come of this. She is a striking premonition of what is to come. A modern Sibyl, lamenting an ill fated future.

Totally F***ed Up ultimately functions fantastically as a slice of life for the early 90's. It reminds of a time where rebellion and status quo defiancy could be a reality in a very large sub-cultural way. As a cinematic endeavor, however, it lacks complexity and depth. Araki's sharp aphorisms are in full form, and you find yourself repeating the phrases with many a snicker. Taking most of its formal cues from Araki's previous ventures, the film is, at times, as aimless as its protagonists. It deploys both the confessional video structure of Three Bewildered People in the Night and tries for the post-modern neo-realism which made The Living End such a vital work. Both affectations come off as rather ill conceived, but as the film rests within the context of the New Queer Cinema, it is certainly an essential title. Bad bad acting aside (and James Duval is certainly a Good bad actor), Totally F***ed Up certainly deserves the unusually pristine treatment it got in its DVD release from Strand last year. The film and its characters are a bit aloof for such a melodramatic title, but then, what does a yuppie teenager really know about being totally fucked up?