Naked Lunch

Most directors wouldn’t even consider turning William S. Burrough’sfragmented cult novel into a film. For Cronenberg it seems like the mostnatural thing in the world. Burrough’s heavily drug influenced, very bizarrestory – if you can even call it that – fits Cronenberg like a glove.And why wouldn’t it? Burrough’s story includes many of Cronenberg’s favouritethemes, symbols and objects. Insects? Yup. The human body? You bet. Therelationship between man and machine? For sure.In ”Naked lunch”, exterminator Bill Lee gets addicted to thepesticide he uses every day and accidentally kills his wife. The tragic eventsends him into an even deeper addiction and into a hallucinatory statebetween reality and nightmare where he imagines himself as a secret agentfighting a cockroach-led conspiracy against the government.But Cronenberg doesn’t stop at just adapting the novel. By includingbiographical material from Burrough’s life, the Canadian mastermind also turns”Naked lunch” into an intriguing take on the creative process.MATTIAS DAHLSTRÖM