Pink Narcissus

A young man who sells himself lies in his room and daydreams. In the dreams there is a Roman slave market, a bullring, a forest, a harem and a garden full of butterflies. In each he takes another costume; gladiator, matador, Spanish dancer. In between we return to the room; there is a client at the door, neon in the street, and the room is the real place. There is almost no speech in the whole film; the narrative is built entirely from colour, fabric and light. James Bidgood wrote and directed it and made the sets and costumes himself. Bobby Kendall plays the lead. It is an American production. The film was shot between 1963 and 1971 in the director's apartment in New York and took seven years. All the sets are handmade; the forest, the arena and the garden were built inside that flat. The backers took the film out of Bidgood's hands and finished it themselves; he rejected the result, removed his name, and it was released unsigned. For years it was thought to be the work of Andy Warhol; the real director came out in the nineties through the research of the writer Bruce Benderson. The matter it treats is the story desire tells itself; the film is not after realism. Colour governs its entire language; pink, red and violet are built up in layers. The film is erotic and explicit; bold for its time and still so. The ending returns to the room. Its limit is form; there is no plot, the pace is slow, and the narrative is entirely visual. Who it is for: viewers curious about experimental cinema and the history of queer film. Who it is not for: it is uneventful, explicit, and the ending unresolved.