Really Surprised!

Absolutely the worst movie.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

it is one of words who could define it. because it is not exactly a film. but a sort of experience. eroticism, colors, poetry, steps and gestures and the water of a state out of definitions. a lovely story who must be created by the viewer. this is all. a poem. bizarre. fascinating. cruel. old fashion and modern at all. it is piece from a period who seems unrealistic to the young public. or eccentric. but it is only honest confession about dreams, fantasies, desires and truth behind taboos. in delicate manner. as eulogy to the male body. as escape from reality. as fresco from an ancient time who has the form of nostalgia and self definition.

The first thing that struck me about the imagery in this film was how much the art of Pierre et Gilles owes to it. Oversaturated color, pink, blue, and yellow gels, and every object gilded and bejeweled within an inch of its life. Add chiffon, satin, and skin-tight chinos, and almost any still from this movie could be misconstrued as Pierre et Gilles.As much as those French artists have borrowed from PN, the film itself reaches for a lot of gay iconography of the time. The street scenes seemed to be trying to animate Paul Cadmus canvases, e.g., with a pinch of Tom of Finland thrown in.Another reviewer mentions that while the film is dated 1971, images from it appeared as early as 1964. I was a teenager in 1964, and the first thing that struck me was how early 60s Bobby Kendall (the lead) looked vis a vis hairstyle and clothes. And the props, such as they are, would now be called Hollywood Regency, and that wouldn't be far wrong. From our current perspective, I would say it's a good look back at what openly gay men looked like--or aspired to--immediately before Stonewall, and before the hippie aesthetic took over the 60s.Correct, the film is free-form, nonlinear, yet seems to be trying to get some point across. I'm not exactly sure what that point is. It's pretty much fill-in-the-blank, it's so generalized. Something about gayness and self-revelation, but perhaps it was too early in the century for the filmmaker to be able to give us something with more emotional impact.This isn't especially a good film, but it is an ambitious one. And it's early in gay culture. For that reason, I think it deserves to be seen, but keep your expectations low. If it had been trimmed by at least half of its 110 minutes it probably would be more highly respected today as a work of art. But then a 45 minute film wouldn't have made it into the art houses of the 70s....

This production fits into the category of art more than it does video, film or cinema. It's not something you'd see at the theater at the mall; there's no dialogue, and there's no "story," or at least not one that fits neatly into our cinematic paradigm. Rather, this is an hour-or-so-long kaleidoscopic arrangement of sounds and colors and forms in the background and teasingly partial revelations of the male body in the foreground. The "art," in imitating life, leads us to Bobby Kendall narcissistically looking in a mirror, being a matador, flying and fantasizing. Actually, you could link Pink Narcissus to one category in our cinematic paradigm: Suspense. Viewers who like the male body will be in suspense for an hour, dying to see just another inch of Bobby Kendall's body.

There's no telling just how much tampering was done to this film to get to the extant version we see today.It's obvious the film was not thrown together, for there are numerous artistic single and composite shots which pepper the work. It's just too bad the final product seems to lack focus, balance, and point of view. Technically it's also a mixed bag: some close ups are clear and impressive, while many long range and medium shots are blurry and diffuse.True, it is rather like Disney meeting Genet, yet even in free association there is some sort of cohesiveness--that which is lacking here. Redundancy seems to rule, as the camera lingers on images which have long made their point, and musical selections on the soundtrack tend to get stuck in their dull grooves. One is reminded of the kind of endurance stamina needed to fathom some of Warhol's flamboyant creations.So, opinions will obviously vary on this one--whose historical legend far surpasses its actual content. Intiguing as a "resurrected underground opus" may be, the value of "Pink Narcissus" will depend on individual taste. Since it's rarely shown today, buffs who are able to track it down may consider themselves fortunate.