觀感首先是壓抑的，讓人帶著獵奇的心態(tài)去關(guān)注走向，最后還得花時(shí)間將隱喻和多義并行的呼應(yīng)慢慢剖析，不是輕易能講清楚的電影。

三段小故事，Hero，Homo，Horror延伸自讓·熱內(nèi)（Jean Genet）自傳體小說(shuō)，互相沒(méi)有交集，但共同點(diǎn)在于

1. 本無(wú)害之人，因社會(huì)的種種傷害，最終都某種意義走上了形成對(duì)社會(huì)惡狠狠的反向報(bào)復(fù)性質(zhì)道路。如Homo中的John，擁抱監(jiān)獄以拒絕這個(gè)拒絕他的社會(huì)；如Horror中的暗示艾滋病的病毒傳播；如小社會(huì)“家庭”壓抑中的小男孩最終開(kāi)槍弒父。

2. 為了融入群體，融入主流價(jià)值觀，哪怕要做出非本意之事，也必須以”同流合污“來(lái)達(dá)成步調(diào)一致。但影片并非從一種“批判”角度來(lái)表現(xiàn)此事，相反，我們看到的是除了普通社會(huì)事件背后的無(wú)可奈何外，更多是認(rèn)同角色的自我認(rèn)同。無(wú)謂善惡，無(wú)謂道德，無(wú)謂判斷。我們見(jiàn)證口水變成鮮花降下，也聽(tīng)見(jiàn)天使在天花上放屁。

照例宣傳一下公眾號(hào) 虛穴取繭 （ID：cocoonics）

In submitting to a prison life, embracing it, I could reject the world that had rejected me.

All night long I built an imaginary life of which he was the center, and I always gave that life which was begun over and over and transformed a dozen times a violent end.

I felt myself growing mean, icy, stiff, gleaming like a sword blade.

A man must dream a long time in order to act with grandeur, and dream is nursed in the dark.

Queer filmmaker Todd Haynes' debut feature POISON dazzles as a multi-faceted cinematic triptych, three segments: Hero, Horror, Homo, all inspired by Jean Genet's novels (with his texts sporadically materialize on the screen as inner beacons), are intertwined altogether yet each is bestowed with a sui generis visual style that speaks volumes of Haynes' eclectic idioms.

Hero takes the form of a grainy and slipshod pseudo-documentary, interviewing sundry characters about a deadly homicide further confounded by a surreal twist, a 7-year-old boy, shoots his father dead and then wondrously flies away from the window witnessed by his mother Felicia (Meeks), various interviewees recounts the boy's aberrant deportment before the incident, some are startlingly perverse, finally, through Felicia's account, the boy's ascension smacks of something punitive and defiant in the face of family dysfunction and violent impulse, rather dissimilar in its undertone and timbre from that WTF upshot in Alejandro González I?árritu's BIRDMAN (2014, 7.6/10).

Horror, shot in retro-monochrome and abounds with eye-catching Dutch angles, namely is a none-too-engrossing pastiche of the erstwhile B-movies and body horror, a scientist Dr. Thomas Graves (Maxwell), accidentally ingests the serum of "human sexuality" which he has successfully extracted, starts to transmogrify into a leprosy-inflicted monster, and his condition is deadly contagious, which threats lives around him, especially his admirer Dr. Nancy Olsen (Norman), who against all odds, not daunted by his physical deterioration. In comparison, this segment is less savory owing to its own unstimulating camp, where Hero ends with a subjective ascending, the upshot for a beleaguered gargoyle is nothing but plummeting.

Last but not the least, Homo is plainly a more self-reflexive treatment conjured up à la Fassbinder's QUERELLE (1982), another mainstay of queer cinema derived from Genet's text. A prisoner John Broom (Renderer), grows intimate towards the blow-in Jack Bolton (Lyons), whom he has met before during his stint in a juvenile facility of delinquency, Jack's humiliated past emerges inside John's mind, now it is his turn to exert his suppressed libido. This chapter is as homoerotic as one can possibly imagine, a maneuver Haynes would have unwillingly relinquished en route pursuing mainstream acceptance, one tantalizing sequence of Broom groping an asleep Jack is divinely graphic and atmospherically transcendent.

Credited as an experimental juvenilia, POISON throbs with vitality, ambition and knowing archness, though the end result is far from flawless, it potently anticipates many a Haynes' modus operandi, say, the segmental structure and interview-style in I'M NOT THERE. (2007, 8.0/10), his distinct prediction for the photogenic period setting and outfit in FAR FROM HEAVEN (2002, 9.2/10) and CAROL (2015, 8.9/10), not to mention his latest sortie into black-and-white mystique and paralleled storytelling in the Cannes-premiered WONDERSTRUCK (2017).

Not many can embrace perversity as plucky as Mr. Haynes has done, whether it is a tragedy can easily take place around us in real life, or a man living through his most egregious incubus, or a blatantly idealized contest of one's sexuality (motifs like wedding, saliva and scars are all defying their accepted norms), just like a child’s stretching hand in the opening credit, Haynes' first directorial outing jauntily treads through many taboo subjects and in retrospect, vindicates that it will be our profound loss if his talent fails to be acknowledged and utilized in full scale.

referential points: Todd Haynes' SAFE (1995, 8.4/10), VELVET GOLDMINE (1998, 6.7/10); Rainer Werner Fassbinder's QUERELLE (1982, 7.8/10).