Synopsis
An irresponsible movie by Gregg Araki.
Two HIV-positive young men—a semi-employed film critic and a hot hustler—tear off on a cross-country crime spree.
1992 Directed by Gregg Araki
Two HIV-positive young men—a semi-employed film critic and a hot hustler—tear off on a cross-country crime spree.
Vivir hasta el fin, Viver até o Fim, Vivendo até o fim, 末路记事, Оголённый провод, შიშველი მავთული, 리빙 엔드, Vivendo Até o Fim
Been meaning to dive head first into Gregg Araki's work for awhile now as he is one of most important figures in LGBTQ cinema. All I really know going into this is that his work is known for being unapologetic, rebellious, and dark. This was all of that and done at such a chaotic level that I wasn't prepared for. Can truly say I don't know a film that uses punk better than this. It goes so much further with themes of mortality than you think it will and it does it in a really beautiful way. I am very on board with this style and have a mix of fear and excitement about diving deeper.
Would love to add…
✔️ Be gay
✔️ Do crimes
✔️ Go into severe depression for two weeks when Echo and the Bunnymen break up
Gregg Araki movies make me swoon. Existentialism has never been steamier, nor more seething. A blistering, essential piece of 90s New Queer Cinema.
In what was clearly meant to be, I watched this film on the day that its story begins, April 13. A gulf of time separates the then from the now, so far that the ends of the snake are beginning to touch even as I write this. The Living End takes place at the tail end of decades of tolerated genocide, of purposeful inaction by a United States Government which had determined that the unchecked spread of AIDS was in its best interests as it primarily affected gay men, IV drug users, and 'The Third World'. A plague that could be encoded for propaganda purposes as the Judgment Of A Wrathful White Straight Heterosexual Male God upon a libertine society…
Live fast, die young, leave a beautiful corpse.
Now this is a queer punk flick I can get behind. I absolutely adored the first Gregg Araki film I saw, Nowhere, and though this doesn't quite match up to the sheer amount of insanity and adoration I found with that, I liked The Living End my fair share. Here we find unlikable men in an even more unlikable world. The extreme "Be gay, do crimes." feature. There's only so long you can poke and prod someone before they want to poke and prod you back even harder. It's a film that, like other notable 80s and 90s queer art, serves as a tragic reminder of all the great artists and people…
Gregg Araki was far too ahead of his time, but even now it seems that we're also not fully ready for him either.
The Living End may be his most chaotic movie thus far, but as a picture of the paranoia that one felt when living amidst the AIDS crisis, especially as a part of a marginalized community. As a scream off into the distance from the queer people who were often shut out, The Living End isn't just a loud scream against the bourgeoisie, it's a film that captures the anger we feel about the world at large - and it also results in something incredibly heartbreaking.
Might probably be my favourite of Gregg Araki's films - at least from what I've seen.
the budget is literally negative five dollars but the story and cinematography are worth staying till the end