A highly anticipated presence at the Venice Film Festival, that of Luca Guadagnino, a director from Palermo of international standingwhich returns two years after “Bones and All” – Silver Lion for Best Director and Marcello Mastroianni Award for actress Taylor Russell – with “Queer”, in the running for the Golden Lion. A work born from an intimate dialectic between the filmmaker and the short novel of the same name by William S. Burroughs (1985) – published in Italy first by Sugarco and then by Adelphi – adapted for the cinema by Justin Kuritzkes, already the author of “Challengers” for Guadagnino.
It’s 1950 and William Lee (Daniel Craig), a fifty-year-old American expatriate in Mexico City, lives alone, except for sporadic relationships with other members of the small American community. When Eugene Allerton (Drew Starkey), a young and enigmatic student, arrives in the city, the man will have the opportunity to establish an intimate connection with someone and acquire new self-awareness. For Guadagnino, a flash of inspiration towards Burroughs’ novel at the base of the film, to the point of wanting to write, and then perform, the third chapter of the original text; but also an identification with the author that dates back to his adolescence.
The film talks about love, loneliness, but also about joy, about their alternation in everyone’s life.. “I think joy was the starting point,” the director said yesterday at a press conference. “When I read the book I was 17 and I was a lonely and megalomaniac boy in Palermo who wanted to build worlds through cinema. I read this little book, translated in Italy with the title “Diverso,” and this gave me something important.” The lack of stereotypes and prejudices is the premise for a deep identification: “The strong connection described in the pages of what exists between these characters, the complete absence of judgment on their behavior, especially Lee’s, the romance of adventure and the romance experienced with the person you’re in love with; all of this has transformed me forever. I wanted to be loyal to the boy I was and I continued to think about wanting to bring this story to the screen.”
“Queer” is in fact a journey into the human soul, which tells of romantic homosexual love.but with joy, with play rather than torment, in which sexuality and eroticism are represented in their “normality”. «For the intimate scenes, the choreography (by Lightfoot-Leon Productions) was fundamental – Craig underlined – We started rehearsing for months: dancing with someone is a great strategy to break the ice. We approached these scenes slowly, even on a physical level. We simply wanted to make them touching, real and natural. We tried to make sex fun too». The research work to get into character was important: «I watched many interviews with Burroughs to understand what characteristics this character had – he added – He spoke in a measured and profound way and I thought it could be part of him, almost a defense. I wanted to understand who he really was, even if it is difficult to understand the boundary between the life of the author and that of his creature».
The filming locations are fundamental to the atmosphere of the film, with the interiors in Cinecittà and the exteriors in Sicily, where Latin America of the period was reconstructed: Mexico at the Botanical Garden and in the Kalsa district of Palermo, while in Buonfornello and Selinunte, at the mouth of the Belice River, the places of Panama were reconstructed. “Queer” in fact had the support of the Sicilian Film Commission and the Department of Tourism, Sport and Entertainment of the Sicilian Region.
The cast also includes Lesley Manville, Jason Schwartzman, Andra Ursuta, Michael Borremans and David Lowery. A Fremantle production, produced by The Apartment with Guadagnino’s Frenesy Film Company and Fremantle North America, in collaboration with Cinecittà spa and Frame by Frame, “Queer” will be in theaters soon with Lucky Red.