Naked (1993) * * * * A movie review by Serdar Yegulalp Copyright 1998 by Serdar Yegulalp
CAPSULE: As bleak and unsparing a movie as could be imagined, and also one of the finest.
"No matter how many books you read," says Johnny, "there is something in this world that you never ever ever ever ever fucking understand."
Johnny should know. His world has caved in around his head; when he spits his venom at the audience and at the others in NAKED, Mike Leigh's scalding and brilliant movie, he's not so much inflicting abuse as reporting from the front.
Johnny appears at the beginning of NAKED with no preface, no history. He steals a car and makes his way to London, where he ingratiates himself with Sophie (Katrin Cartlidge), the flatmate of an old girlfriend who's on holiday. From the way he talks to her -- and she's as zombified and out-of-it as he is, she just has more socially acceptable reasons for being like that -- we wonder how he could have ever entertained a relationship with anyone. We wonder how he could even stand to be near a mirror, or how they can even stand to be near each other. They embody each other's deepest disgusts, and make no bones about it. And on a deeper, uglier level, they justify each other.
I've known people like Johnny (played unblinkingly and with frightening power by David Thewlis). They don't have a fixed address, method of income, bank account, or even a consistent set of clothes. What they do have is a philosophy, an outlook -- the one thing they can take with them to the grave, and they are convinced that is exactly where they and everyone else on the besotted planet are headed. Johnny has been stepped on by life -- stripped naked, as per the title, and what's left is not something anyone who can wrap themselves snugly in a cozy house and a good-paying job wants to look at. Thewlis makes Johnny fascinating, because he is obviously intelligent and not without a certain amount of heart, but so badly beaten that it's a miracle he's not one giant walking lump of psychic scar tissue.
And -- quel irony -- there is another character, Jeremy (Greg Cruttwell) who is not only far safer than Johnny will ever be (or could), but is happily awaiting his own destruction. The sooner he's out of here, the better, but there's no reason he can't have some fun toying with others on the way on the way.
Mike Leigh is one of my favorite directors, because he refuses to force his material to fit a mold. He takes actors who are his friends, then has them play out improvised scenes with characters in mind and then develops a script from that material. No screenwriter could have come up with the material in NAKED; it's just too confrontational and too raw. One scene which is almost agonizing to watch -- but it's the agony that preludes ecstasy, in a way -- has Johnny confronting a night watchman and systematically trying to break down the man's pat defenses against lunatics like himself.
NAKED is not a fun film; it's not a piece of "entertainment". But that's precisely why it works -- it is not only honest and unsparing, but true and properly observed. After seeing it, I was forced to confront my own sense of nihilism, and wrestle with it a little harder than I had before. Like IKIRU, this is one of those rare movies that really does, in my opinion, have the power to cause people to analyze themselves and maybe make changes in their lives. It's painful, but not without cause.
The movie's rationale is simple: There are no safe exits or manufactured redemptions for anyone here. We are all far closer to the abyss than we think. Even Johnny, who has cultivated the act of staring into the abyss, does not understand until it's too late that there's no such thing as the bottom. Only down.
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