I really thought this film was going to be a particularly memorable one. It seemed to have all the workings of a possibly memorable film for me: the director impressed me with My Own Private Idaho, the title is compelling, and the title together with it x rating (in retrospect, I wonder why this film is still rated x.....or why it was rated x even then) evoked in me an excitement at being challenged and confronted by a presentation of innovative ideas and taboo subjects and images. But the film doesn't reside prominently in my memory, except for a few images. Those images are unsettling and repulsive, for instance the scientist who ingested the essence of sexuality serum face appears to drip or melt in some scenes (this probably an analogy for AIDS), and the scene where a young man's mouth is used as a bullseye target for what seems to be a spitting contest.
I don't know if director Todd Haynes was putting forth a concerted effort to make this a serious or important film or is rather just seemingly unspooling various thought threads of his views and that of society's on gayness at the time. The term "gay"(with is positive connotations in happiness and gladness) doesn't seem appropriate here, as homosexuality in the film coexists with often degraded and repugnant imagery, and is itself depicted often negatively. The film splits between three different yet still connected stories, as it moves back and forth between the three instead of presenting them in separate blocks. In so doing, the darker themes of imprisonment and confinement (the story set in prison) are juxtaposed with ideas of freedom, as when the strange (queer?) little boy ascends presumably into the heavens from the window sill (at first thought one assumes the boy jumping out the window is committing suicide). This gives the film an odd supernatural flavour and redeeming hopefulness, although upon further reflection the hope seems lost when considering that it has to be presented as supernatural (can unity and peace among and for gays only be expressed in this unrealistic way?) But on another level, the film may be an accurate reflection of the regressive attitudes and ambiguity towards homosexuality during the height of the epidemic of AIDS, so that the depictions aforementioned are expressing dark and angry emotions perhaps present in this particular gay film maker; maybe the thought that gays were sexually liberated at the beginning of the eighties but became stigmatized once again (due to a deadly disease, no less)was the cause for much frustration and anger among gay artists like Haynes. Perhaps it seemed for a while that salvation only lied in such a dreamlike solution.
At any rate, the boy ascending out the window did give this movie an interesting, unexpected turn, and did mitigate some of the darkness that pervaded most of the film (this is represented visually as well, as the prison story cinematography appears colour desaturated and the diseased scientist one is black and white). But I found it sometimes too bleak....and way too slow. Perhaps this very slow (almost excruciatingly slow) pacing was deliberate for one reason or another on the director's part, but I almost had to shake my head from nodding out a bit to keep up my involvement in the film as an attentive viewer.
An unusual story telling technique, some jarring and disturbing scenes, and just a general underlying weirdness are qualities I like, but the pacing is too slow and the message(s) seems too cynical and negativeat least for my own private subjective standards (which may or may not agree with you the reader). Then again, the film is called Poison, so that may be expected and required. I'll allot this seven stars because despite its flaws as I see them, it is nonetheless a work of film art--just not one particularly memorable for me.
I don't know if director Todd Haynes was putting forth a concerted effort to make this a serious or important film or is rather just seemingly unspooling various thought threads of his views and that of society's on gayness at the time. The term "gay"(with is positive connotations in happiness and gladness) doesn't seem appropriate here, as homosexuality in the film coexists with often degraded and repugnant imagery, and is itself depicted often negatively. The film splits between three different yet still connected stories, as it moves back and forth between the three instead of presenting them in separate blocks. In so doing, the darker themes of imprisonment and confinement (the story set in prison) are juxtaposed with ideas of freedom, as when the strange (queer?) little boy ascends presumably into the heavens from the window sill (at first thought one assumes the boy jumping out the window is committing suicide). This gives the film an odd supernatural flavour and redeeming hopefulness, although upon further reflection the hope seems lost when considering that it has to be presented as supernatural (can unity and peace among and for gays only be expressed in this unrealistic way?) But on another level, the film may be an accurate reflection of the regressive attitudes and ambiguity towards homosexuality during the height of the epidemic of AIDS, so that the depictions aforementioned are expressing dark and angry emotions perhaps present in this particular gay film maker; maybe the thought that gays were sexually liberated at the beginning of the eighties but became stigmatized once again (due to a deadly disease, no less)was the cause for much frustration and anger among gay artists like Haynes. Perhaps it seemed for a while that salvation only lied in such a dreamlike solution.
At any rate, the boy ascending out the window did give this movie an interesting, unexpected turn, and did mitigate some of the darkness that pervaded most of the film (this is represented visually as well, as the prison story cinematography appears colour desaturated and the diseased scientist one is black and white). But I found it sometimes too bleak....and way too slow. Perhaps this very slow (almost excruciatingly slow) pacing was deliberate for one reason or another on the director's part, but I almost had to shake my head from nodding out a bit to keep up my involvement in the film as an attentive viewer.
An unusual story telling technique, some jarring and disturbing scenes, and just a general underlying weirdness are qualities I like, but the pacing is too slow and the message(s) seems too cynical and negativeat least for my own private subjective standards (which may or may not agree with you the reader). Then again, the film is called Poison, so that may be expected and required. I'll allot this seven stars because despite its flaws as I see them, it is nonetheless a work of film art--just not one particularly memorable for me.