Life as a gay or queer person (pun intended) is marked by a kind of negativity, as many queer theorists have analyzed in the past. It comes with its own unique set of anxieties—not just about sexuality or a specific subset of people. There’s the anxiety of meeting someone and not knowing how they feel about you. Then there’s the added anxiety of wondering if they might reciprocate your feelings, without even considering whether they truly want to. There’s that unfulfilled and relentless yearning for the (dark) object of desire.
Rejection hurts worse after months, years, or decades of floating in a self-imposed emotional and sexual stasis. In these breakups, these cracks, these unfinished paintings, people tend to internalize their feelings and leave fragments of themselves behind in the other person. As much as they may want to connect, they often can’t. Self-destruction permeates your existence. Intimacy, tenderness, yearning—at their rawest and most vulnerable. You can’t shake the memory of their soft, awkward, affectionate touch. You can’t forget those ambiguous glances. Imaginary fingers tracing every inch of your body. You want to sink into the other person, to become one.
A queer film for queer people. Addictive, erotic, ugly, uncomfortable, and at times unpleasant—just like desire itself. Few filmmakers can depict longing the way Luca Guadagnino does. I have no doubt the last thirty minutes will leave most straight viewers confused and unsettled, but for me, it hit straight to the chest.
Guadagnino has taken on an incredibly challenging cinematic endeavor; adapting William Burroughs’ book of the same name is no easy feat. Yet, in my opinion, he’s managed to surpass the boundaries of visual storytelling with this film, creating a surreal cinematic narrative about desire, obsession, hedonism, the void that’s always searching for something—and, somewhere in the depths, queer loneliness. Brutally raw yet deeply tender.
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