A Review of The Doom Generation
The Doom Generation is the
second movie in Greg Araki's "Teenage Apocalypse" trilogy, his fifth feature
length film and his first big budget 35mm feature. Unlike some filmmakers who
made the leap to big money, it isn't wasted on him. This is the work of Greg
Araki - no nostalgia for either the innocence or sin of youth here. Instead
it's dark. Very dark. Araki describes it as his funniest film. Following
Totally F***ed Up , which gave him the title "Pioneer of Queer New Wave," this
is his "heterosexual movie," but that doesn't mean anyone is less f**ked up or
the sex is any less interesting.
Amy is a young
femme fatal who complains of being bored. Jordan is her post-hippie industrial
pothead boyfriend. And Xavier is the slightly older stranger they accidentally
rescue from a beating by the members of Skinny Puppy. Xavier, with his tattoos,
violence and open sexuality, is the final catalyst for Amy and Jordan's descent
into a color-saturated nightmare, the full manifestation of their frustrated
teenage desires. It's never clear who he'd rather seduce, Jordan or Amy. But
soon after he enters the picture, Amy stops complaining of boredom.
Amy and Jordan may be alienated, black-clothed teens, but they are not insane, unlike the society around them. Every store they enter has signage that indicates we just might be experiencing the fall of civilization. From the "Shoplifters Will be Executed" sign in the first convenience store to "The Apocalypse is Coming" in the thrift store, Amy and Jordan are on the brink of self-preservation or destruction, surrounded by nihilism. But oh, they have love: "I hope we die together in, like, a fiery car crash," Jordan tells Amy. Araki captures the perfect blend of self-absorption and alienation in his teenagers; their sex and their heightened need for something outside of themselves to make sense, their stumbling attempts to express emotion beyond "F*ck you." Despite Amy's tough attitude and Jordan's peaceable acceptance of everything, they are overwhelmed by the way the world is out to get them.
They're stuck in a
hell of convenience stores and prevalent violence. The only plot devices are
Amy's frequent supposed mistaken identity by weirdoes and the amount of their
purchases at various convenience stores ($6.66). This manages to hold together
the sex and violence that just seems to follow the threesome around. They're on
the run in Amy's old Continental, but they don't know what they're running
from.
Initially the
violence is comic horror, geared toward reaction more than fear, always
unexpected and unmotivated. That sex and violence are the same emotion and
release is not left to analogies: Araki visualizes his point unmistakably on
the screen when Xavier licks cum and blood off his hand after masturbating
while watching Amy and Jordan f*ck in the bathtub. The film uses voyeurism
repeatedly, during violence and sex.
Later, Jordan
watches Amy and Xavier through the blinds at another motel. As he masturbates,
his yo-yo with the colored lights jerks up and down near his feet as train
noises build. The extreme close-up of the yo-yo is claustrophobic. Like holding
your breath before orgasm, it barely contains the action. It mirrors the
passivity of Jordan as he watches his girlfriend fuck Xavier, a passivity that
surfaces throughout the film in the violence that asserts itself over the three
characters and in the many people that insist Amy is someone else, and is
finally fully realized in the rape sequence at the end. Passivity and voyeurism
are indistinguishable, and it is Amy, not Xavier, who finally revolts.
Most scenes are shot with frequent close-ups, and the longer shots are confined to a cramped motel room or the glare of fluorescent lights. The shots are always tight around the action, leaving little room to see what's coming next. Amy, the ornery sex-pot, also subverts the viewer's gaze with her assortment of sunglasses. The rest of her face is expressionless in these close-ups, denying the viewer any chance to understand her motivations or reactions.
The violence is
slasher-movie fake. The camera lingers on the severed head spitting green
chunkiness and the pooling blood the same way it lingered over the hot dogs
covered with bright condiments. The murder is simply a plot device and the
visuals the beginning of dark camp. Amy tells Xavier to throw the severed arm
out the window of the car. It is violence as spectacle, existing to titillate
the viewer with its extremes. The murders are as flashy and tacky as the
horrible blond wig and heart-shaped, rose-tinted glasses Parker Posey wears. We
even see the convenience store murder a second time, in grisly detail, on the
late night news with the anchors (played by Peter Brady and that kid from The
Love Boat) superimposed. But as the viewer ascends to this view of violence as
splashy, overdone entertainment, Araki yanks it away in the final violent
scene, presenting horror without visuals. The scene is shot with a strobe-like
effect, showing just enough to make what is happening unmistakable before the
screen goes dark again. It slows down the violence unbearably, lingering on the
facial expressions and the sounds. The violence in this scene is as drenched in
symbolism and color as the rest of the movie. The red, white and blue of the
American flag and the red swastika are suddenly manifesting the underlying
sadism of the suburban symbols of America that Araki threw around so lightly
earlier in the film.
The movie is saturated with color and darkness. As they run from the convenience store after the first murder, the wall behind them flashes bright colors against their silhouettes. The three characters' last names are significant colors: Xavier Red, Jason White and Amy Blue. Araki's elaborate, colorful sets and close camera shots create a surreal background for the random violence and sex.
His attention to background detail emphasizes the overwhelming insanity of their urban surroundings, contributed to by appearrances from Heidi Fleiss, Perry Farrell, and Dustin Nguyen (the forgotten member of 21 Jump Street) as clerks. Araki's cinematic world of style and color sets off the barrage of uncontrollable sex and violence as a place that isn't unfamiliar if you're prone to conspiracy theories. Araki doesn't leave us without hope in the end, but the ride to Hell is fun enough for those with a dark sense of humor.
