Nowhere (1997)

An essay on post-post-modern loneliness, Gregg Araki's "Nowhere" is a saddening dirge for the loss of innocence in American life. Sexual liberation, rampant drug use, fast cars, alcohol, food, possessions... none of these are able to satisfy the deep craving in our collective soul. Araki zooms in to a glaring and magnified close-up of the gaping hole in our psyche and shows us how nothing can fill this empty cavern. Not sex. Not drugs. Not food nor cars nor fame nor money...

Araki's protagonist, as is his wont in his so-called "teenage trilogy," is the magnificent James Duval. As in previous Araki films, he is bold, daring, and beautiful. We see the sorrow and the helplessness so often confused with teen angst in Duval from almost the first frame. Unashamed and unafraid, Duval makes his character, Dark, a everyman for us. We understand him and empathize with him. We ARE him.

Araki's world is a world of phony sets and phony characters. Nothing could be more faux than the TV star played by Jaason Simmons. In a beautiful moment of blurring the line between reality and television, Araki has Simmons play a role so close to his true persona that there is no distinction. Simmons, in effect, plays himself but his character does things that we can only hope are not a reflection of reality. Simmons should be congratulated for having the balls to carry off such a role. As always, Araki peoples his film with the most interesting and beautiful characters. He surrounds them with other young stars who represent the vapid imagining of our pop consciousness. They are "Teen Beat" fold-out posters come to life, tarted up for our enjoyment. Araki makes Joe Isuzu and Peter and Cindy Brady our parents, Julie from "The Love Boat" a TV news anchor and Jack Tripper from "Three's Company" a televangelist. These constant reminders of our "unreality" make the happenings in his character's lives all the more surreal. We, like Araki's characters, cannot tell reality from fiction. In Araki's world, rock stars throw the best teenage parties and indie film stars and cyber-models make the most awesome lovers.

Araki finally demonstrates this unreality by having a man in a fake, giant lizard suit play a supposed alien which represents the coming of reality. The unreality of alien existence comes full circle to represent the dissolving of all the fiction happening around us. Duval's Dark is the only one tuned in, just barely, to reality, so his character is the only one that can see the lizard. The lizard takes his teenage crush away and then returns him, or at least a shell of him, only to remind us that the beauty and the love that we all long for is simply unobtainable. In Araki's world, there is no happy ending. The moment when we seem to find true peace is the moment when reality explodes in our face leaving us blood-soaked, shell-shocked, and - most horribly - totally and completely alone.

Araki gets a real budget and is actually allowed to film on high quality film stock, he makes optimal use of this. "Nowhere," in the tradition of his previous films, is a full tilt assault on our sensibilities using visuals, slogans, audibles, dialogue, actors and music to function in coagulated cohesion. His film is seamless.

Araki's film is beautiful to watch thanks to wonderful set design and the beauty of his male and female leads. The bright colors and the pop culture icons that appear throughout the film only serve to enhance the TV fiction theme of reality which Araki so vividly evokes here.

With "Nowhere," Araki supposedly wraps up his teen trilogy begun with "Totally Fucked Up" and "The Doom Generation." No other director in the 90's so graphically and perfectly is able to capture teen angst and human longing and sorrow on celluloid. Araki's gay sensibilities lead him perfectly in the direction of visual splendor and erotic overkill. Araki's films are repugnant and disheartening. They are also erotic and frightening. It is impossible to watch his films without a full-on boner and yet, his heartfelt emotions constantly lead us back to questioning. From the sexual, we find ourselves in the cerebral. We wonder about our place in this world. We wonder if all of our pop culture trappings have left us sterile, isolated and limp. The tragedy of modern existence has never seemed so obvious, has never felt so sad, has never trouble us so. Araki opens our eye's to the nightmare that is our world without platitudes or easy answers. He opens our eyes and then fills them, as well as our minds, with stunning visuals, and a sober protagonist that makes us care deeply about what it all means. We cry with him at the lack of solutions and the absence of truth and beauty. We are left bloodied, shell- shocked and desperately alone ourselves, as is Duval. And we wish we could reach out to Duval, to touch him, to hold him and to heal him. But alas, we are denied his beauty, his comfort, his touch. We cannot quench his longing, not can he quench ours. We cannot overcome the separation between our worlds: That which is the silver screen.

Note: Araki wrote the script and acts as editor and producer.

With Rachael True, Nathan Bexton, Chiara Mastroianni (the daughter of Marcello Mastroianni and Catherine Denuve), Debi Mazar, Kathleen Robertson (of "90210"), Joshua Gibran Mayweather, Jordan Ladd (daughter of Cheryl Ladd), Christina Applegate, Sarah Lassez, Guillermo Diaz, Jeremy Jordan, Alan Boyce, Ryan Phillippe, Heather Graham, Scott Caan (son of James Caan), Thyme Lewis, Mena Suvari, John Enos (of "Melrose Place"), Beverly D'Angelo, John Ritter, Charolotte Ray, Shannon Doherty, Traci Lords, Christopher Knight, Eve Plumb, Lauren Tewes, David Leisure, The Brewer Twins (Derek and Keith), Denise Richards, Teresa Hill, Kevin Light, Rose McGowan, and Gibby Haynes (of "Butthole Surfers).

Duval and Boyce were also in "Totally Fucked Up."

Several of these actors also appeared in "Biodome."

Music by several industrial and alternative bands. Also includes Stacy Q's "Two of Hearts." References Clive Barker, Bikini Kill, Dead Puppies, "Baywatch," Neitzche, John Hughes films, among others.

Filmed in L.A. in 1995..

Report Card

Script: A+

Acting: A+

Cinematography\Lighting: A+

Special Effects\Make Up: A+

Music: A+

Final Grade: A+