The one movie Gregg Araki will never revisit: “Even if I wanted to”
Instilled with a love of cinema and a profound sense of disillusionment towards the state of American society, Gregg Araki began making films as a creative outlet for his frustrations. As a result, he became one of the leading figures of the New Queer Cinema movement, making his feature debut with the now obscure Three Bewildered People in the Night.
He garnered more attention after making The Living End, which earned him a ‘Grand Jury Prize’ nomination from Sundance Film Festival. It was his next three films – Totally Fucked Up, The Doom Generation, and Nowhere – which established him as a cult indie filmmaker, with his tales of teen angst conveying a real sense of discontentment with the societal prejudices and lack of governmental care for young people.
Take Nowhere, for example – juxtaposed with campy humour and bizarre set design is an exploration of intense themes, from rape and suicide to isolation and drug abuse. With its shoegaze and indie-drenched soundtrack, the movie has become a favourite among arthouse movie lovers and queer teenagers alike.
Before Nowhere, The Doom Generation saw Araki go even darker with a rather nihilistic and bleak story of three sexually fluid teenagers whose drive for freedom on the road quickly turns into a horror show. The movie is full of eroticism and violence, the two seemingly going hand-in-hand as Araki explores the way that people are punished for not adhering to conventional ways of living, especially in relation to sexuality that exists outside of the ‘desired’ norms.
In an interview with Slant Magazine, Araki revealed that he finds pleasure in hearing that young people relate to or find comfort in these films: “A lot of times when I go to film festivals, here or abroad, I get these kids coming up to me with DVDs of The Doom Generation or a Nowhere CD or something and telling me about how the movies helped them. A lot of times, these kids come from these horribly retrograde little towns in some red state somewhere, and they grew up feeling ostracised or alone.”
“I would often hear about movies helping them get through some really tough times, and, as a filmmaker, that’s really the highest compliment you can get when somebody connects with something you’ve made,” he added.
However, despite this, he can’t imagine going back to these characters and themes in the same way. He has matured since then, his way of viewing the world has naturally shifted, and he simply has other ideas in mind for creating films. This is how Kaboom, his 2010 sci-fi comedy, was born – a film that allowed Araki to experiment with new ideas as a natural progression from his earlier movies.
Explaining, “So, in a way, I wanted to make another movie for this generation while at the same time finding a way not to repeat myself or going backward. I’m really not the same person that I was in the mid-1990s. I’m older now, and I’m at a really different place in my life. So even if I wanted to, I couldn’t make, say, The Doom Generation 2. I’m just not in that angry, angst-ridden headspace that I was back then.”
As much as Araki is proud of The Doom Generation, it’s not a movie he thinks he could possibly ever revisit. It occupies a specific place in time and history for the filmmaker – one defined by the disillusionment of the grunge era and the AIDS crisis. Araki believes in constant evolution as a filmmaker, which is why he has experimented with genres and even mediums like television.
